Charles Babbage - Marriage, Family, Death

Marriage, Family, Death

On 25 July 1814, Babbage married Georgiana Whitmore at St. Michael's Church in Teignmouth, Devon. The couple lived at Dudmaston Hall, Shropshire (where Babbage engineered the central heating system), before moving to 5 Devonshire Street, Portland Place, London.

Charles and Georgiana had eight children, but only four — Benjamin Herschel, Georgiana Whitmore, Dugald Bromhead and Henry Prevost — survived childhood. Charles' wife Georgiana died in Worcester on 1 September 1827, the same year as his father, their second son (also named Charles) and their newborn son Alexander. His subsequent decision to spend a year travelling on the Continent incurred a delay in his machines' construction.

Babbage lived and worked for over 40 years at 1 Dorset Street, Marylebone, where he died at the age of 79 on 18 October 1871; he was buried in London's Kensal Green Cemetery. According to Horsley, Babbage died "of renal inadequacy, secondary to cystitis." In 1983 the autopsy report for Charles Babbage was discovered and later published by his great-great-grandson. A copy of the original is also available. Half of Babbage's brain is preserved at the Hunterian Museum in the Royal College of Surgeons in London. The other half of Babbage's brain is on display in the Science Museum, London.

His youngest son, Henry Prevost Babbage (1824–1918), went on to create six working difference engines based on his father's designs, one of which was sent to Harvard University where it was later discovered by Howard H. Aiken, pioneer of the Harvard Mark I. Henry Prevost's 1910 Analytical Engine Mill, previously on display at Dudmaston Hall, is now on display at the Science Museum.