William Erasmus Darwin

Vocation

English banker and amateur photographer. He is primarily notable as a subject of his father Charles Darwin's studies of infant psychology. During William's first three years his father kept a diary of gestures and facial expressions the infant made. The studies were part of Darwin's comparison between animal and human development, after he had already thoroughly studied orangutan babies at the London Zoo. Charles Darwin published his findings in the journal Mind in June 1877, in an article titled "A biographical sketch of an infant". The studies were also an influence behind his work The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, published in 1872. William was educated at Rugby School and Christ's College Cambridge, and later became a banker at Grant and Maddison's Union Banking Company in Southampton. In 1877 he married an American Sara Price Ashburner, no children. William was a great believer in university education being available to all, and championed the establishment of a university college in Southampton in 1902. He died on 8 September 1914 at Sedbergh in Cumbria. Link to Wikipedia biography