In an entry in his Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of the Various Countries Visited by HMS Beagle (1839), a young Charles Darwin noted: "The law of the succession of types, although subject to some remarkable exceptions, must possess the highest interest to every philosophical naturalist." The law of the succession of family types is also of the highest interest – the evolution of the Darwin family is a tale of dynastic marriage and profitable alliance.
Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury in 1809. His mother, Susannah, died when he was eight. "I can remember hardly anything about her except her death-bed, her black velvet gown, and her curiously constructed work-table," he recalled. Susannah's father was the great one-legged potter, inventor and industrialist, Josiah Wedgwood.
