The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley, vol 1 | Page 3

PLATE 1. PORTRAIT OF T.H. HUXLEY FROM A
DAGUERROTYPE MADE IN 1846.
PLATE 2. FACSIMILE OF SKETCH, "THE LOVES AND
GRACES."
PLATE 3. PORTRAIT FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY MAULL AND
POLYBLANK, 1857.
PLATE 4. NUMBER 4 MARLBOROUGH PLACE--FROM THE
GARDEN. AFTER A WATERCOLOUR SKETCH BY R. HUXLEY.
PLATE 5. PORTRAIT FROM A PHOTOGRAPH BY ELLIOTT AND
FRY; STEEL ENGRAVING IN "NATURE," FEBRUARY 5, 1874.

CHAPTER 1.
1.
1825-1842.
[In the year 1825 Ealing was as quiet a country village as could be
found within a dozen miles of Hyde Park Corner. Here stood a large
semi-public school, which had risen to the front rank in numbers and
reputation under Dr. Nicholas, of Wadham College, Oxford, who in
1791 became the son-in-law and successor of the previous master.
The senior assistant-master in this school was George Huxley, a tall,
dark, rather full-faced man, quick tempered, and distinguished, in his
son's words, by "that glorious firmness which one's enemies called
obstinacy." In the year 1810 he had married Rachel Withers; she bore
five sons and three daughters, of whom one son and one daughter died
in infancy; the seventh and youngest surviving child was Thomas
Henry.
George Huxley, the master at Ealing, was the second son of Thomas
Huxley and Margaret James, who were married at St. Michael's,

Coventry, on September 8, 1773. This Thomas Huxley continued to
live at Coventry until his death in January 1796, when he left behind
him a large family and no very great wealth. The most notable item in
the latter is the "capital Messuage, by me lately purchased of Mrs. Ann
Thomas," which he directs to be sold to pay his debts--an inn,
apparently, for the testator is described as a victualler. Family tradition
tells that he came to Coventry from Lichfield, and if so, he and his sons
after him exemplify the tendency to move south, which is to be
observed in those of the same name who migrated from their original
home in Cheshire. This home is represented to-day by a farm in the
Wirral, about eight miles from Chester, called Huxley Hall. From this
centre Huxleys spread to the neighbouring villages, such as Overton
and Eccleston, Clotton and Duddon, Tattenhall and Wettenhall; others
to Chester and Brindley near Nantwich. The southward movement
carries some to the Welsh border, others into Shropshire. The
Wettenhall family established themselves in the fourth generation at
Rushall, and held property in Handsworth and Walsall; the Brindley
family sent a branch to Macclesfield, whose representative, Samuel,
must have been on the town council when the Young Pretender rode
through on his way to Derby, for he was mayor in 1746; while at the
end of the sixteenth century, George, the disinherited heir of Brindley,
became a merchant in London, and purchased Wyre Hall at Edmonton,
where his descendants lived for four generations, his grandson being
knighted by Charles II in 1663.
But my father had no particular interest in tracing his early ancestry.
"My own genealogical inquiries," he said, "have taken me so far back
that I confess the later stages do not interest me." Towards the end of
his life, however, my mother persuaded him to see what could be found
out about Huxley Hall and the origin of the name. This proved to be
from the manor of Huxley or Hodesleia, whereof one Swanus de
Hockenhull was enfeoffed by the abbot and convent of St. Werburgh in
the time of Richard I. Of the grandsons of this Swanus, the eldest kept
the manor and name of Hockenhull (which is still extant in the
Midlands); the younger ones took their name from the other fief.
But the historian of Cheshire records the fact that owing to the
respectability of the name, it was unlawfully assumed by divers "losels
and lewd fellows of the baser sort," and my father, with a fine show of

earnestness, used to declare that he was certain the legitimate owners of
the name were far too sober and respectable to have produced such a
reprobate as himself, and one of these "losels" must be his progenitor.
Thomas Henry Huxley was born at Ealing on May 4, 1825, "about
eight o'clock in the morning." (So in the Autobiography, but 9.30
according to the Family Bible.) "I am not aware," he tells us playfully
in his Autobiography, "that any portents preceded my arrival in this
world, but, in my childhood, I remember hearing a traditional account
of the manner in which I lost the chance of an endowment of great
practical value. The windows of my mother's room were open, in
consequence of the unusual warmth of the weather. For the same
reason, probably, a neighbouring beehive had swarmed, and the new
colony, pitching on the window-sill, was making its way into the room
when the