Editing Thomas Henry Huxley (section)

== Early life ==
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Thomas Henry Huxley was born in [[Ealing]], then a village in [[Middlesex]]. He was the second youngest of eight children<ref>{{cite web |title=Thomas Huxley |url=https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/thuxley.html |access-date=2023-02-26 |website=ucmp.berkeley.edu |archive-date=26 February 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230226054420/https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/history/thuxley.html |url-status=live}}</ref> of George Huxley and Rachel Withers. His parents were members of the Church of England, but he sympathized with [[Nonconformist (Protestantism)|nonconformists]].<ref name="Brit"/> Like some other British scientists of the nineteenth century such as [[Alfred Russel Wallace]], Huxley was brought up in a literate middle-class family which had fallen on hard times. His father was a mathematics [[schoolmaster]] at [[Great Ealing School]] until it closed,<ref>Bibby, amongst others, queried this account, which owes its origin to Leonard Huxley's biography (1900). Bibby, Cyril. 1959. ''T. H. Huxley: scientist, humanist and educator''. Watts, London. p. 3–4</ref> putting the family into financial difficulties. As a result, Thomas left school at the age of 10, after only two years of formal schooling.<ref name="Brit"/>

Despite this lack of formal schooling, Huxley was determined to educate himself. He became one of the great [[autodidact]]s of the nineteenth century. At first he read [[Thomas Carlyle]], [[James Hutton]]'s ''Geology'', and [[Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet|Hamilton]]'s ''Logic''. In his teens, he taught himself [[German language|German]], eventually becoming fluent and used by [[Charles Darwin]] as a translator of scientific material in German. He learned [[Latin language|Latin]], and enough [[Greek language|Greek]] to read Aristotle in the original.<ref>{{cite news |title=The Project Gutenberg eBook of Thomas Henry Huxley - A Sketch of His Life and Work by P. Chalmers Mitchell, M.A. (Oxon.). |url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/16935/16935-h/16935-h.htm#p186 |access-date=11 January 2023 |archive-date=11 January 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230111132516/https://www.gutenberg.org/files/16935/16935-h/16935-h.htm#p186 |url-status=live}}</ref>

[[Image:Young Huxley RN.jpg|thumb|Huxley, aged 21]]

Later on, as a young adult, he made himself an expert, first teaching himself about [[invertebrates]], and later on [[vertebrates]]. He did many of the illustrations for his publications on marine invertebrates. In his later debates and writing on science and religion, his grasp of theology was better than many of his clerical opponents.<ref name=autogenerated3>{{Harvnb|Desmond|1994}}</ref><ref name=autogenerated4>{{Harvnb|Huxley|1900}}</ref>

He was apprenticed for short periods to several medical practitioners: at 13 to his brother-in-law John Cooke in Coventry, who passed him on to Thomas Chandler, notable for his experiments using [[animal magnetism|mesmerism]] for medical purposes. Chandler's practice was in London's [[Rotherhithe]] amidst the squalor endured by the [[Charles Dickens|Dickens]]ian poor.<ref>Chesney, Kellow 1970. ''The Victorian underworld''. Temple Smith, London; Pelican 1972, pp. 105, 421.</ref> Afterward, another brother-in-law took him on: John Salt, his eldest sister's husband. Now aged 16, Huxley entered Sydenham College (behind [[University College Hospital]]), a cut-price anatomy school. All this time Huxley continued his programme of reading, which more than made up for his lack of formal schooling.

A year later, buoyed by excellent results and a silver medal prize in the [[Society of Apothecaries|Apothecaries']] yearly competition, Huxley was admitted to study at [[Charing Cross Hospital]], where he obtained a small scholarship. At Charing Cross, he was taught by [[Thomas Wharton Jones]], Professor of Ophthalmic Medicine and Surgery at [[University College London]]. Jones had been [[Robert Knox (surgeon)|Robert Knox]]'s assistant when Knox bought cadavers from [[Burke and Hare]].<ref>The cut-price anatomy schools and Robert Knox are well treated in Desmond's account of materialist medical dissidents of the 1820s and 30s: Desmond A. 1989. ''The politics of evolution: morphology, medicine and reform in radical London''. Chicago.</ref> The young Wharton Jones, who acted as go-between, was exonerated of crime, but thought it best to leave Scotland. In 1845, 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]]. Later in life, Huxley organised a pension for his old mentor.

At twenty he passed his First M.B. examination at the [[University of London]], winning the gold medal for [[anatomy]] and [[physiology]]. However, he did not present himself for the final (Second M.B.) exams and consequently did not qualify for a university degree. His apprenticeships and exam results formed a sufficient basis for his application to the [[Royal Navy]].<ref name=autogenerated3 /><ref name=autogenerated4 />