Talk:Huxley family

This article was nominated for deletion on October 8, 2006. The result of the discussion was no consensus.

Andrew's wife

"He married Jocelyn Richenda Pease, distantly related to the Pease Family." - quite closely related, I would have thought, but so what? Who are they? --Hugh7 01:35, 29 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I think it is referring to the Pease family (Darlington) who were prominent in the 1800's in the north of England. However they are quite distant with a common ancestor in the mid-1700s. She is the grand-daughter of Edward Reynolds Pease if anyone is interested. --Erp (talk) 03:46, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Francis Huxley

Francis Huxley (Julian Huxley's son) should be added to the tree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Huxley

Suggested source for expansion

From the above deletion debate, a good book to expand the article and provide sources, would be: The Huxleys by Ronald W. Clark (McGraw-Hill, 398 pp.)[1][2]. Carcharoth 06:52, 4 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Will do. Just have to find the book in my stacks.--Wloveral (talk) 12:55, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Scope of family biogs

I'm turning over in my mind the possiblity of adding some family members with other surnames, that is, descended from daughters. Seems at least genetically sound, but would have to be well justified. Do we have any guidelines on this? Macdonald-ross (talk) 13:48, 14 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting question, the Darwin/Wedgwood family page lists others. BTW Andrew's full brother whose name I can't recall had a longish obit in the New York Times when he died I think in the early 90's. --Erp (talk) 03:51, 4 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I would have thought it sexist to include descendents with the Huxley name more willingly than descendents who are equally connected but through a female line. Budhen (talk) 12:24, 6 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Quite so, though we're long past that now. Notability is the only criterion. The article contains information about all descendents whose notability seems established. Macdonald-ross (talk) 11:40, 9 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And several whose notability is weak (e.g., Rachel Huxley and her children). --Erp (talk) 05:13, 10 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Layout

IMHO, the family tree image should be placed below the introduction.--Wloveral (talk) 12:57, 10 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

THH & religion

It is not accurate to say, without qualification, that THH was against the Anglican Church. Why? Because at the time the struggle between the traditional high church and the young liberal church was at its peak (Essays and Reviews). THH was friendly with some of the latter, and in cahoots with a couple (see X-club). His struggle was against a) any literal or near-literal belief in the Bible, b) any authoritarian church structures and c) indoctrination of the young. He was directly antagonistic to teaching any sectarian beliefs in school, but not to children reading the Bible. He was really outspoken against the Catholic church on all these grounds. This is why a simple formula such as "He successfully campaigned against the stifling of scientific debate by the Church of England" just will not do, though it has crept into some other articles in WP.

Some phrases from the X-club article: "Thus, by 1864, the members of the X Club were joined in a fight, both public and private, to unite the London scientific community with the objective of furthering the ideas of academic liberalism" and "The men of the club all shared an interest in natural history, naturalism, and a more general pursuit of intellectual thought free from religious influence, commonly referred to as academic liberalism". These phrases put the emphasis on freedom of thought & expression, but it is also true that THH was combative angainst any religions and/or laws that would obstruct such liberalism.

All this in explanation of the edits here and elsewhere where I remove blanket statements (eg THH vs Church of England) and substitute slightly more complicated, but more accurate wording. These issues are gone over in the main THH article and in most of the twenty or so biographies of THH. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:47, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

recent revisions to THH

I did a fair bit of work on this article yesterday to make it more readable. As is probably clear, I don't have any special knowledge or inded access to the sources, but I do, I think, have a good general picture of what the mythical "Average Reader" is looking for, and try to optimise for that. Some more changes have been made today and most are great, but there are a couple I'll take issue with here. One sentence about THH:

He successfully campaigned against the stifling of scientific debate by the Church of England, transformed the teaching of science in British schools, and created the model for biology teaching in British universities.

has become:

He was instrumental in developing scientific education in Britain, and fought against the more extreme versions of religious tradition.

I have no quibble with the education parts of the sentence, but if it is indeed true that he resisted the restrictions of the Church of England, then I think that needs to be stated plainly, rather than referring vaguely to "religious tradition". The institutional force of a national established church is not one to be glossed over.

And a minor point: I inserted the gloss "(teacher)" in the phrase about Leonard Huxley being an "assistant master at Charterhouse School" and the word was removed. I see no reason why an intelligent 12 year old -- I was going to say, American, but it could as well be Singaporean or even British -- child (as one example of the sort of person I imagine might be reading this) should recognise this archaism. It is perfectly reasonable, if you haven't come across the word before, to think a "master" must be in charge of something, like a master craftsman or a ship's master. The normal word is teacher; if an elite school chooses to use some other term, it should be explained, and if a term was once common and has now become superceded by another, it also needs to be explained. BrainyBabe (talk) 16:14, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, we can agree on the importance of comprehensibility, but there are issues that are difficult to put briefly without becoming inaccurate. The Church of England may be established, but it contains a huge range of opinions; it does not claim infallibility, and its bishops are surprisingly limited in what they can do to even their own priests. The Church of Scotland (also established, incidentally) has no bishops and is not part of the Anglican communion. The Church of Ireland was disestablished in 1871. The Catholic Church has, and had in THH's time, a significant number of adherents, and a 'party line' which its priests could be relied upon to deliver. Various non-conformist churches also abound. This is just a background, because in 1860 (and for years) the established Church of England was split from top to bottom by the issues raised by Essays and Reviews, and indirectly by evolution. This is why I try and say what is accurate, namely, that it was the most conservative, high-church, literalists whom Huxley opposed.

I don't think the Church of England as a collective constitutional body ever ruled against evolution or science. (I could be wrong, of course!) Speeches and articles were certainly made by such as Samuel Wilberforce, who did move against the authors of Essays & Reviews (most of whom held church positions). I do not think it accurate to say that Huxley campaigned against the stifling of scientific debate by the Church of England, instead, he campaigned against the opinions of specific opponents.

Life was harder forty or fifty years previously, when William Lawrence was prosecuted for blasphemy for presenting a naturalistic account of mankind. In the interval the Church of England moved from stifling to sniffling...

I offer some rewordings for your perusal. Macdonald-ross (talk) 18:40, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your thoughtful response the sentence in question now reads:

He was instrumental in developing scientific education in Britain, and opposed those religious leaders who might try to stifle scientific debate.

If you think there are no particular leaders or churches to pick out, fair enough; this is after all a summary. Two tweaks: instead of "religious leaders", how about "Christian leaders"? He wasn't jousting with the Chief Rabbi, was he? It seems valid to site this debate within as specific a context as possible: if it was not in fact solely CofE, then surely it was Christian. And also, I prefer the vigour of "who tried", as opposed to the pseudo-uncertainty of "who might try". For your thoughts. BrainyBabe (talk) 20:55, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I like your tweaks. Done! Macdonald-ross (talk) 22:11, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, the civil discourse of Wikipedia collaboration at its best! BrainyBabe (talk) 23:41, 2 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Huxley family category

Now all members discussed are in the Hux fam category if they have independent articles in WP. The graphic tree remains seriously incomplete. In addition to the data in the article, there is a reasonable tree in The Huxleys by Ronald W. Clark, with the first three generations descended from THH. I mention this in case anyone feels brilliant, and wants to redo our tree. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:14, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

And exactly how complete should the family tree be? By my count Andrew Huxley alone has 15 descendants (including one g-grandchild), none of whom have their own wiki article or probably are significant enough to have their own wiki article.--Erp (talk) 19:22, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I would say the three generations after THH would be good. After all, Clark has already done the searching work (I have no evidence that there are any errors or omissions). Macdonald-ross (talk) 21:05, 21 February 2009 (UTC) The Darwin-Wedgwood-Galton family tree goes to the fifth generation! Macdonald-ross (talk)[reply]

I've been playing a bit with genealogyj and the Huxley family since it can produce SVG files from GED data (and is open software). I think using SVG instead of PNG would allow people to zoom in a bit but the current SVG report within genealogyJ needs some work. I would personally omit the names of all non-wiki significant people unless they connect two significant people. the Wedgwood-Darwin-Galton tree is certainly not complete to five generations (to begin with it omits several of the first and second Josiah Wedgwoods' children). It also omits people like CV Wedgwood and the first Lord Wedgwood though it does a bit better on the Darwin side (though several of Charles Darwin's children are omitted). --Erp (talk) 22:49, 21 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you, that's interesting. It's clear the discussion needs to be more detailed, so I've posted some thoughts on your talk page. We can summarise here when/if we reach an agreed plan. Macdonald-ross (talk) 10:51, 27 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Francis Galton

Anybody got Francis Galton's connection written up already?

Otherwise, I will do it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.154.22.115 (talk) 01:26, 24 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

What connection? There is a very distant one through Angela Huxley's marriage, but, I'm unaware of any other. Or are you talking a non-relative connnection?--Erp (talk) 01:24, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

There's no meaningful family connection. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:52, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Spelling of Mady's name

In both this article and in John Collier (artist) Mady's name is spelled both "Marian" and "Marion". Which is correct? (She is distinct from Noel Huxley Waller's wife and his daughter, both named Marion, so be careful editing.) 58.147.60.97 (talk) 07:55, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Correct as Marian in the original text and family tree; the misspelling crept in from the file name of photographs. Macdonald-ross (talk) 14:15, 25 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Flag

It is not for an unregistered used to flag an article without first discussing the matter properly on this talk page. As it happens, another user has made sensible changes to the intro, so the flag can come down. Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:42, 23 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Mental Health Issues in the family

This section strikes me as having problems with WP:OR and WP:NPOV. As I don't have the time or the access to sources to fix this myself, I thought I'd leave a note here with my concerns.

Examples:

"For him to pass up such a golden opportunity speaks of his state of mind"

Comment: The preceding sentences about his apparent lack of interest in the Great Barrier Reef are referenced to Huxley's diary, and this sentence is unreferenced. Who's opinion is it that this speaks of his state of mind? As it is stated in Wikipedia's voice, I assume it is the author's, which would make it original research.

"This is enough to indicate the way depression (or perhaps a moderate bi-polar disorder) interfered with his life, but he was able to function well at other times."

Comment: According to what criteria is that enough? What RS states that these seemingly disparate anecdotes are enough to indicate anything? Where do these possible diagnoses come from?

137.43.188.81 (talk) 14:43, 7 October 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Long enough for this section to be hanging around so I've removed it. The only secondary source was Galton, Francis 1892. Hereditary genius. London, xix which is out of date and isn't even used to support mental health issues in the family. All the rest is primary sources use to support an editor's thesis (@Subsume who added it in October 2007). Erp (talk) 08:04, 22 January 2024 (UTC)[reply]

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