OBITUARY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 175, 11 December 1912, Page 5

OBITUARY.

SIR GEORGE DARWIN. By Cable—Pr;ss Association—Copyright. London, December 8. The deatli is announced of Sir George Howard Darwin, second son of Charles Darwin, the famous naturalist. The late Sir George Darwin was born in 1845, and lias been Plnmian Professor of Astronomy and Experimental Philosophy at Cambridge since 1883. He had a distinguished university career, and was Senior Wrangler and Smith's Prizeman at Cambridge in 1808, in which year he was elected a Fellow of Trinity College. In 1905 he was elected president of the British Association, having previously been president of the Royal Astronomical Society. Sir George also contributed extensively to the scientific reviews on mathematical subjects.

Of the family of two daughters and five sons left by Charles Darwin, four of the sons have become prominent in the scientific world —Sir George; Francis (born 1848). the distinguished botanist; Leonard (born 1850), a major in the Roval Engineers, and afterwards well known as an economist; and Horace (born 1851), civil engineer. Two of the sons, Sir George and Major Leonard, have been president of the British Association in different years. The Darwin family furnish exceptionally interesting material for a study in heredity. Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), great-grandfather of Sir George, was a well-known English man of science and poet. Robert Waring Darwin (17RG--1840), bis third sou by his first marriage, a doctor at Shrewsbury, was the father of the famous Charles Darwin; and Violctla, liis eldest daughter by Iris second marriage, was the mother of ths lute Sir Francis Galton, the founder of the present eugenic movement, and a leading authority on heredity.