Erasmus Darwin (1731?1802), Alumnus of St John's College, Cambridge, Physician, Grandfather of Charles Darwin

Original colour engraved mezzotint by J. R. Smith, 1797, after J. Wright. Not examined outside of frame. In notes dating to 1779, Darwin made a sketch of a simple hydrogen-oxygen rocket engine, with gas tanks connected by plumbing and pumps to an elongated combustion chamber and expansion nozzle, a concept not to be seen again until one century later. Erasmus Darwin also anticipated survival of the fittest in his poem, 'Zoonomia' ; or, The laws of organic life when writing about the fittest view in Zo?nomia on how a species -should- propagate itself. Erasmus' idea that -the strongest and most active animal should propagate the species, which should thence become improved-. Today, this is called the theory of survival of the fittest.