The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin

The earliest records of the family show the Darwins to have been

substantial yeomen residing on the northern borders of

Lincolnshire, close to Yorkshire. The name is now very unusual in

England, but I believe that it is not unknown in the neighbourhood

of Sheffield and in Lancashire. Down to the year 1600 we find the

name spelt in a variety of ways¿Derwent, Darwen, Darwynne, etc.

It is possible, therefore, that the family migrated at some unknown

date from Yorkshire, Cumberland, or Derbyshire, where Derwent

occurs as the name of a river.

The first ancestor of whom we know was one William Darwin,

who lived, about the year 1500, at Marton, near Gainsborough. His

great grandson, Richard Darwyn, inherited land at Marton and

elsewhere, and in his will, dated 1584, "bequeathed the sum of 3s.

4d. towards the settynge up of the Queene's Majestie's armes over

the quearie (choir) doore in the parishe churche of Marton." (We

owe a knowledge of these earlier members of the family to

researches amongst the wills at Lincoln, made by the well-known

genealogist, Colonel Chester.)