Colonel Charles Waring Darwin, CB, DL, JP (28 August 1855 – 1 August 1928) was a British soldier and landowner.[1]
Darwin was the son of Francis Darwin JP DL (né Rhodes) of Elston Hall, Nottinghamshire; his mother Charlotte Maria Cooper Darwin (1827–1885) was the daughter of William Brown Darwin of Elston (1774–1841). He was a second cousin once removed of the naturalist Charles Darwin, their shared ancestors (CWD's great-great-grandparents, CRD's great-grandparents), being Robert Darwin of Elston and his wife Elizabeth (née Hill).[1] His father had changed the family name from Rhodes (of Creskeld Hall) to Darwin (of Elston Hall) in 1850 in order to inherit the latter property from his brother-in-law Robert Alvey Darwin (1826–1847).[2] He was educated at Winchester College.[3]
In 1894 he married Mary Dorothea Wharton, daughter of John Lloyd Wharton MP.[1] They had three sons, each of whom pursued military careers:
Gilbert William Lloyd Darwin, Royal Air Force (1899–1979)
Darwin entered the British Army in 1873,[3] achieving the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Durham Light Infantry in 1894, before his retirement in 1895. Despite official retirement, he was appointed a major in the 4th (Militia) battalion of his regiment on 15 February 1900,[4] and again saw active service with this battalion in South Africa during the Second Boer War, where he was awarded the service medal with 3 clasps. Following the end of the war, he returned to the United Kingdom with his battalion on the SS Roslin Castle in September 1902, and the battalion was disembodied.[5]
^ ab‘DARWIN, Col Charles Waring’, Who Was Who, A & C Black, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing plc, 1920–2007; online edn, Oxford University Press, Dec 2007 accessed 26 Dec 2013