TO FOLLOW UP: Soame Gambier Jenyns's brother Leonard edited Darwin's Zoology of the Voyage of HMS Beagle, volume on Fishes:
https://archive.org/details/darwin-online_1842_Fish_F9.4
NB. CD named his son b. 1850 Leonard! Any connection?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leonard_Darwin
"Major Leonard Darwin (15 January 1850 — 26 March 1943), a son of the English naturalist Charles Darwin, was variously a soldier, politician, economist, eugenicist and mentor of the statistician and evolutionary biologist Ronald Fisher."
Which were the children CD took to Chobham? George and Henrietta.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Darwin
"Sir George Howard Darwin KCB FRS FRSE (9 July 1845 — 7 December 1912)[1] was an English barrister, eugenicist, astronomer and mathematician."
Father of Gwen Raverat.
Famous portrait of CD in middle age dates from 1854. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin
CHECK Charles Darwin: The power of place, Volume 1 By E. Janet Browne
Check the Letters etc
[https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=1-ppvm5C6CYC&pg=PA469&lpg=PA469&dq=charles+darwin+chobham+camp&source=bl&ots=stYFjuz4Jp&sig=YRjWpt3qt8JszaboexjS9YBlZYg&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj8rInI--7QAhVqKMAKHX3dDQMQ6AEIITAB#v=onepage&q=leonard&f=false]CHECK CD and the Crimean War:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=darwin+and+war&oq=darwin+and+war&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.2642j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#newwindow=1&safe=off&q=charles+darwin+and+crimean+war
CHECK what turns up when you Google "CHARLES DARWIN CRTIMEAN WAR:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?tbm=bks&hl=en&q=Charles+Darwin++Crimean+war
Spent 5 days at Chobham Camp in August 1853. The Hensleigh Wedgwoods lived at ?, nearby
Medical friends were active in Smyrna.
Their eldest son, William Erasmus Darwin attended Rugby School (like Flasman!), with a particular involvement in the Crimea. William Erasmus Darwin (27 December 1839 — 8 September 1914). So when would he have been there? 1850 — 1856? His contemporaries?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Erasmus_Darwin
http://darwin-online.org.uk/converted/Ancillary/1914_William_A554.html
Letter from CD to his son suggests WED arrived at Cambridge Oct 15 1858, so yes, he was at Rugby throughout Crimean War.
William Erasmus went to a preparatory school at Mitcham where he had for a schoolfellow his friend Mr Philip Norman, who is known, among other things, for his pleasant sketches of disappearing London. In after years William used to tell us about Mitcham, and I remember thinking as a child that it must have been a delightful place because stag-beetles were common there and were kept captive by the boys.
Thence William went to Rugby to the House of one whom we usually heard described as "Bobby" Mayor, and who had the further distinction of being a brother of the late Professor J. E. B. Mayor. He was happy at Rugby but carried away a reminder of football in a weakened ankle which forced him to wear an iron support for many years. One of his schoolfellows was his cousin Ernest Wedgwood, who came up to Trinity a year before William entered at Christ's.
He rowed in 1859 as No. 4, and in 1860 and 1861 as stroke in the College Boat. The blue silk night-cap which then distinguished the Christ's Boat from all others, was long preserved by him, and there is indeed a doubtful tradition that when he became bald he used it for the purpose to which it seems adapted.
He served in the University Volunteers, and was at the same time an officer in the Down Corps. This last fact was impressed on my boyish memory by the fact that his sword fell out of its sheath and broke 11 out of a pile of 12 dessert plates: these, which were bright green covered with embossed grapes, were much admired in their day, especially when combined with brilliant purple finger glasses.
CD writes to his WED about "ladder gymnastic" — military drill and callisthenics — see here, about Major Johnstone's regime introduced 1855.
WED entered Rugby in 1852 at the age of 12. There are numerous references here:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=DVs7eSvqMmcC&pg=PA322&lpg=PA322&dq=rugby+school+william+erasmus+darwin&source=bl&ots=K-uYmiUkTP&sig=IBLcog2T2JGJaUw0floSpvoGZZA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjmp5jCpO_QAhXGIcAKHdmyCR8Q6AEINTAF#v=onepage&q=rugby%20&f=false
Notice CD drawing attention to Georgie's obsession with "Horse-guards" at this time.
N.B> Rugby School's Centurion Window, commemorating old boys who died in the Crimea.
Emma Darwin 1881
We are very much charmed with Lord G. Paget's account of the Crimean War, a subject I dislike so much that I am surprised to like it so much; but he only tells what he saw himself, and he was in England at the worst of the horrors.
F. is very much in love with Lady G. too, who was there part of the time. His passion for her has to feed upon very little; but he is convinced she is beautiful by the way she was coaxed and fêted, and Marmora's Italian Band to play to her everywhere. All about Cardigan is amusing. Lord G. thinks it such surprizing good luck if he behaves decently, and you escape coming to a quarrel with him.
He speaks constantly of the extreme beauty of the Crimea. We have also begun Lyell (which has been most favourably reviewed in the Times). The scrap of autobiography is pleasant. He hated all his schools very much, and no doubt there are fewer disagreeables now.
I horrified F. the other day by saying that I thought the French plan of having supervision in the dormitories was very good. What can boys do better at night than hold their tongues and go to sleep. It is no advantage that they should have uproarious games, and if bullying takes place it is sure to be at that time. G. was very miserable as a little boy, till they got that room to themselves (not to mention all the bad talk).
Adrian Desmond & James Moore, Darwin, (Penguin, 1992): the index has a number of entries for Crimean War: pp.417 — 9 (mentions 13LD!), 422, 424, 440, 449, 576. FOLLOW UP.
COMPLETE THE QUOTE...
The country was on a war footing....10,000 men: the grandest...For a moment, in fact it became all too real. The Darwin-Wedgwood contingent found themselves being charged by the 13th Light Dragoons [Soame Gambier Jenyns's regiment — did he arrange?] and had to flee for their lives. It was part of he thrill that made three happy days unforgettable. And the one who enjoyed them most was Charles* (p.417).
Note on sources (p.713)
* Hutchinson, Life, 30, 36; CCD, 5:105; ED, 2:154; TBI, 49-50; G. Darwin's "manual exercise" and diary, 1852-54, DAR 210.7; CCD, 4:427.
Hutchinson, H.G., Life of Sir John Lubbock, Lord Avebury. 2 vols. Macmillan, 1914, 30, 36. Available online here (vol.1) and here (vol.2). Not relevant — references to joining the Kent Artillery Militia only.
Burkhardt and Smith, Correspondence of Charles Darwin. 7 vols., 1985-91, 5:105; 4:427.
Litchfield, Emma Darwin, 2 vols., 1915, 2:154.
Colp, To be an invalid, 1977, 49-50.
George Darwin's "manual exercise" and diary, 1852-54, Darwin Archive, Cambridge University Library, 210.7.
several references[IF POSS> CHECK THE ORIGINAL LETTERS/IMAGES — these may be summaries only.]
Another very plesant [sic] holiday was to the Hermitage, the Harry Wedgwoods to see the Camp at Chobham. My Father had an interest in soldiers & liked the show part of it. But he was also intensely interested in it as giving some idea of war & wd talk of it with pleasure to the end of his life. There was particular moment when we were between two charging bodies of cavalry & had to run for their lives he often used to laugh over. (http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=1&itemID=CUL-DAR262.23.1&viewtype=text)
The only houses we ever visited at were those of relations. There were two at which I think he liked visiting, namely the Hermitage near Wokey (my uncle Harry's) then in a very wild country & it was a great pity that we had no wild heaths within easy reach of Down.
In '53 we went to the Hermitage & visited the camp of monoeuvres at Chobham. He must have been stronger at that time, because I remember we were out nearly all day on 3 days watching the sham-fights. I remember we were charged by the 13th Light Dragoons & all had to run hard to get out of the way. (http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=1&itemID=CUL-DAR112.B9-B23&viewtype=text)
1853 Aug.13 — 16 The Hermitage nr Woking to visit Henry Allen W with ED, George Howard D & Henrietta Emma D, visited military camp for Crimean war at Chobham.(source?)
The visit to the military camp at Chobham seems an unlikely enterprise for a member of the Darwin family, but this visit was a great success. Charles and Emma took their second son George, who as a boy was fascinated with soldiers, and Henrietta, who looked back on it "as an extraordinarily delightful and unique experience, still fresh in my memory although it is fifty years ago."11 (http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?pageseq=1&itemID=A668&viewtype=text)
Adrian Desmond & James Moore, Darwin's Sacred Cause: Race, Slavery and the Quest for Human Origins, mentions Cardigan's support for Governor Eyre when Eyre was recalled to England in 1866 (p.351).
Cardigan and the Eyre affair are discussed in Donald Thomas, Charge! Hurrah! Hurrah! A Life of Cardigan of Balaclava, 318 — 20. Cardigan received rather interesting hate mail as a result.