Thomas Henry Huxley - Family

Family

In 1855, he married Henrietta Anne Heathorn (1825–1915), an English émigrée whom he had met in Sydney. They kept correspondence until he was able to send for her. They had five daughters and three sons:

• Noel Huxley (1856–60), died aged 4.
• Jessie Oriana Huxley (1856–1927), married architect Fred Waller in 1877.
• Marian Huxley (1859–87), married artist John Collier in 1879.
• Leonard Huxley, (1860–1933) author.
• Rachel Huxley (1862–1934) married civil engineer Alfred Eckersley in 1884; he died 1895.
• Henrietta (Nettie) Huxley (1863–1940), married Harold Roller, travelled Europe as a singer.
• Henry Huxley (1865–1946), became a fashionable general practitioner in London.
• Ethel Huxley (1866–1941), married artist John Collier (widower of sister) in 1889.

Huxley's relationship with his relatives and children were genial by the standards of the day—so long as they lived their lives in an honourable manner, which some did not. After his mother, his eldest sister Lizzie was the most important person in his life until his own marriage. He remained on good terms with his children, more than can be said of many Victorian fathers. This excerpt from a letter to Jessie, his eldest daughter is full of affection:

• "Dearest Jess, You are a badly used young person—you are; and nothing short of that conviction would get a letter out of your still worse used Pater, the bête noir of whose existence is letter-writing. Catch me discussing the Afghan question with you, you little pepper-pot! No, not if I know it..." "There, you plague—ever your affec. Daddy, THH." (letter Dec 7th 1878, Huxley L 1900)

Huxley's descendants include children of Leonard Huxley:

• Sir Julian Huxley FRS was the first Director of UNESCO and a notable evolutionary biologist and humanist.
• Aldous Huxley was a famous author (Brave New World 1932, Eyeless in Gaza 1936, The Doors of Perception 1954).
• Sir Andrew Huxley OM FRS won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1963. He was the second Huxley to become President of the Royal Society.

Other significant descendants of Huxley, such as Sir Crispin Tickell, were treated in the Huxley family.