Erasmus Darwin’s life at Lichfield: fresh evidence

Erasmus Darwin lived from 1731 until 1802, and the last 20 years of his life, at Derby, are well documented. In the first half of his career as a physician, at Lichfield, the sources are scantier, and little is known about his first wife Mary (née Howard), who suffered chronic illness for several years before her death in 1770 at the age of 30. In particular, no letters written by Mary have been available; and the only known account of her illness written by Erasmus dates from more than 21 years after her death. Recently Mr George Pember Darwin has made a further large donation of family papers to Cambridge University Library, to add to the rich Darwin archive already held there. The new deposit, DAR.227, which has not yet been catalogued, contains much material relevant to Erasmus’s early life, including some of Mary Darwin's correspondence and details of her last days. All quotations in this paper are from manuscripts in DAR.227, unless otherwise specified.