The Evolution of Inanimate Objects: The Life and Collected Works of Thomas Darwin. Harry Karlinsky

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      Figure 4. Charles Darwin on His Horse Tommy.

       CUL location-MS. DAR.225:116. Reproduced by kind permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library.

      One favourite family anecdote concerning Thomas and Bernard involved a secret potion. Charles had once taken pleasure in astounding a very young Thomas with variously dyed polyanthuses and primroses that he produced by watering the plants with coloured fluids. It became Uncle Thomas’s responsibility to educate his nephew in similar manner. A triumphant Bernard was then allowed to present these alchemic concoctions to his father Francis and to Grandmamma and Grandpapa. Even Charles Darwin feigned amazement and would beg to learn from a pleased and proud Bernard how such transformations had been achieved.

      Thomas and Bernard’s mutual joy was Polly, a rough white terrier and cherished Darwin family pet. Generally docile and content to remain indoors, Polly would sit serenely for hours, staring out the drawing-room window. On sighting Thomas and Bernard in the gardens, however, she would madly bark and race around the drawing-room, mollified only on reuniting with her glimpsed masters. Such enthusiasm was deemed worthy of description by Charles Darwin, and Polly’s contortions are reported in much greater detail under the heading of “Exuberance” in the second edition of Expression of the Emotions, published posthumously in 1890.¹¹

      Throughout Thomas’s youth, the Darwins occasionally undertook brief family holidays, in Emma’s hope that a change of scenery would improve her husband’s frail health. Journeys of note involving Thomas included a trip to Torquay in June and July of 1861; a house in Malvern Wells in the autumn of 1863; six weeks in Dimbola Lodge, Isle of Wight, during the summer of 1868; and time spent in Caerdeon, in North Wales, in the summer of 1869. In 1872, Thomas travelled independently to Staffordshire where he summered with his Wedgwood relations. There, he worked during the day at the Etruria Works Pottery, founded by his maternal great-grandfather Josiah Wedgwood I. It was then common for boys his age to carry moulds from the potters to the stoves — tedious and dangerous employment. Other risks also had to be considered. Emma, for one, was extremely concerned that Thomas, only fifteen, might be prematurely attracted to one of many first cousins he met during this visit. By her count, there were already four first cousin marriages involving the Darwin and Wedgwood families, including Emma’s own marriage to Charles. As Emma confided to her Aunt Fanny Allen, “There is such a strong inclination on both sides of Thomas’s family to marry first cousins.”

      Emma suspected that Thomas’s affections would be most vulnerable while attending the large family dances held at Maer Hall, the Wedgwood’s country home. Thankfully, at least from Emma’s perspective, Thomas had once attended a dancing class with his sisters Henrietta and Elizabeth. Just seven, and the only boy, Thomas had been forced to wear baggy velvet knickerbockers that ended above his knees. After class, Emma found him sobbing outside on the curb-stone. The unpleasant association remained with Thomas and it was a relieved Emma who wrote to Aunt Fanny that, “Thomas, having never taken to dancing, has resisted all overtures to join his cousins on the dance floor. Hurrah, hurrah!”