“I will never be a party to enabling the State to sweep the children of this country into denominational schools”
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Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley was an English biologist and anthropologist who specialised in comparative anatomy. He has become known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his advocacy of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution.
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culture · English biologist (1825–1895) · biologist · linguist · paleontologist · translator · ichthyologist · zoologist · carcinologist · anatomist · photographer · philosopher · also Thomas Henry Huxley, Huxley, Prof. Huxley, T. H. Huxley
Born 4 May 1825 · Died 29 June 1895 · Q184366
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2026· 3 entries
“In the distant future... light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history”
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“The collection of fossils is the most wonderful thing I ever saw.”
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2020· 1 entry
To address Imperial's "links to the British Empire" and build a "fully inclusive organisation"
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1925· 1 entry
To celebrate his centenary, Nature issued a supplement devoted to Huxley
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1916· 1 entry
A street in the Bronx, New York City, was named in his honour (Huxley Avenue)
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1914· 2 entries
To his time as a student, Sir Arthur Shipley said "Darwin's later works all dealt with living organisms, yet our obsession was with the dead, with bodies preserved, and cut into the most refined slices
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And Julian suffered a breakdown in 1913, and five more later in life
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1911· 1 entry
And Lubbock (now Lord Avebury) was the last surviving member
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1899· 1 entry
“Agnosticism and Christianity”
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1895· 7 entries
Died 1895-06-29.
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“Science … commits suicide when it adopts a creed.”
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“Em temas intelectuais, siga tua razão tanto quando possas, sem temer nennhum outro tipo de consideração. E negativamente: em temas intelectuais, não finjas que é certa nenhuma conclusão que não tenha sido demonstrada ou seja demonstrável.”
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In Eastbourne, and was buried in London at East Finchley Cemetery
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“The great tragedy of Science — the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.”
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“Logical consequences are the scarecrows of fools and the beacons of wise men.”
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“Prefiro ser parente de um macaco que de um homem que usa eloqüência para destruir a verdade.”
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1894· 2 entries
Won Darwin Medal (1894).
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Heard of Eugene Dubois' discovery in Java of the remains of Pithecanthropus erectus (now known as Homo erectus)
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1893· 2 entries
Awarded Hayden Memorial Geological Award (1893).
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During preparation for the second Romanes Lecture, Huxley expressed his disappointment at the shortcomings of 'liberal' theology, describing its doctrines as 'popular illusions', and the teachings they replaced 'faulty a
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1892· 1 entry
Huxley's five-year-old grandson Julian saw the illustration by Sambourne (right) and wrote his grandfather a letter asking: Dear Grandpater — Have you seen a Waterbaby
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1890· 2 entries
Won Linnean Medal (1890).
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Moved from London to Eastbourne, where he had purchased land in the Staveley Road upon which a house was built, 'Hodeslea', under the supervision of his son-in-law F
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1889· 1 entry
After a dispute with Huxley over state support for science
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1888· 2 entries
Won Copley Medal (1888).
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And the Darwin Medal in 1894; the Geological Society awarded him the Wollaston Medal in 1876; the Linnean Society awarded him the Linnean Medal in 1890
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1885· 2 entries
“The interpreters of Genesis and the interpreters of Nature”
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After a bout of depressive illness which started in 1884
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1884· 1 entry
Sank into another depression, and this time it precipitated his decision to retire in 1885, at the age of 60
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1883· 1 entry
Career landmark: President of the Royal Society (1883–1885).
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1882· 1 entry
“Science and Hebrew Tradition.”
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1880· 2 entries
Won Clarke Medal (1880).
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“The Coming of Age of The Origin of Species”
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1877· 1 entry
“On Elementary Instruction in Physiology”
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1876· 2 entries
Won Wollaston Medal (1876).
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“Address on University Education”
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1874· 1 entry
“Universities, Actual and Ideal”
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1873· 1 entry
The King of Sweden made Huxley, Hooker and Tyndall Knights of the Order of the Polar Star: they could wear the insignia but not use the title in Britain
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1872· 2 entries
Awarded Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi (1872).
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Career landmark: rector (1872–1875).
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1870· 2 entries
“On Descartes' Discourse touching the method of using one's reason rightly and of seeking scientific truth”
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Was president of the British Association at Liverpool and, in the same year was elected a member of the newly constituted London School Board
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1869· 2 entries
And elaborated on it in 1889 to frame the nature of claims in terms of what is knowable and what is not
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Huxley elaborated on "agnosticism" in 1889 to frame the nature of claims in terms of what is knowable and what is not
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1868· 3 entries
“On the Physical Basis of Life”
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Huxley became Principal of the South London Working Men's College in Blackfriars Road
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Career landmark: President of the Geological Society of London (1868–1870).
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1867· 2 entries
Huxley said "there was no shade of justification for the assertion that any existing modification of mankind now known was to be considered as an intermediate form between man and the animals next below him in the scale
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“there was no shade of justification for the assertion that any existing modification of mankind now known was to be considered as an intermediate form between man and the animals next below him in the scale of the fauna of the world”
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1865· 1 entry
“Emancipation — Black and White”
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1863· 2 entries
“Our Knowledge of the Causes of the Phenomena of Organic Nature”
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As chapter 2 of Man's Place in Nature, with an addendum giving his account of the Owen/Huxley controversy about the ape brain
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1862· 2 entries
Examined the Neanderthal skull-cap, which had been discovered in 1857
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A series of talks to working men was printed lecture by lecture as pamphlets, later bound up as a little green book; the first copies went on sale in December
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1859· 1 entry
Completely convinced Huxley of evolution and it was this and no doubt his admiration of Darwin's way of amassing and using evidence that formed the basis of his support for Darwin in the debates that followed the book's
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1858· 4 entries
Awarded Fellow of the Linnean Society of London (1858).
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Won Croonian Medal and Lecture (1858).
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On The Theory of the Vertebrate Skull was the start
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Alongside excerpts from Darwin's notebook and a Darwin letter to Asa Gray
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1857· 1 entry
When Richard Owen presented (to the Linnean Society) his theory that man was marked off from all other mammals by possessing features of the brain peculiar to the genus Homo
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1855· 1 entry
Married Henrietta Anne Heathorn (1825–1914), an English émigrée whom he had met in Sydney, Australia
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1854· 1 entry
“On the Educational Value of the Natural History Sciences”
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1852· 1 entry
Won Royal Medal (1852).
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1850· 1 entry
Was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society
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1849· 1 entry
By the Royal Society in its Philosophical Transactions
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1845· 1 entry
Under Wharton Jones' guidance, Huxley published his first scientific paper demonstrating the existence of a hitherto unrecognised layer in the inner sheath of hairs, a layer that has been known since as Huxley's layer
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1825· 1 entry
Born 1825-05-04.
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