Editing Thomas Henry Huxley (section)

== Family ==
{{See also|Huxley family}}
{{stack|
[[File:THH by Collier.jpg|thumb|Pencil drawing of Huxley by his daughter, Marian]]
[[File:Tom&julien-72.jpg|thumb|Huxley with his grandson [[Julian Huxley|Julian]] in 1893]]
[[File:Marian Collier (née Huxley) by John Collier.jpg|thumb|Marian (Mady) Huxley, by her husband [[John Collier (Pre-Raphaelite painter)|John Collier]]]]
}}

In 1855, he married [[Henrietta A. Huxley|Henrietta Anne Heathorn]] (1825–1914),<ref>{{cite news |date=3 June 1914 |title=Death of Mrs Huxley |page=4 |newspaper=The Sun |issue=1227 |location=New South Wales, Australia |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article224650663 |accessdate=2 March 2023 |via=National Library of Australia |archive-date=31 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230331021848/https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/224650663 |url-status=live }}</ref> an English émigrée whom he had met in [[Sydney, Australia]]. They kept correspondence until he was able to send for her. They had five daughters and three sons:

* Noel Huxley (1856–60), died of [[scarlet fever]].
* Jessie Oriana Huxley (1858<ref>{{cite web|last=Huxley|first=T.H.|title=To Lizzie, March 27, 1858|url=http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/letters/58.html|work=Letters and Diary: 1858|publisher=Clark University|access-date=6 February 2014|archive-date=20 February 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140220101925/http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/letters/58.html|url-status=live}}</ref> −1927), married architect Fred Waller in 1877.
* [[Marian Huxley]] (1859–87), married artist [[John Collier (Pre-Raphaelite painter)|John Collier]] in 1879.
* [[Leonard Huxley (writer)|Leonard Huxley]], (1860–1933) author, father of [[Julian Huxley|Julian]], [[Aldous Huxley|Aldous]] and [[Andrew Huxley]].
* Rachel Huxley (1862–1934) married civil engineer Alfred Eckersley in 1884; he died in 1895. They were parents of the physicist [[Thomas Eckersley]] and the first BBC Chief Engineer [[Peter Eckersley (engineer)|Peter Eckersley]].
* Henrietta (Nettie) Huxley (1863–1940), married Harold Roller, and travelled Europe as a singer.
* Henry Huxley (1865–1946), became a fashionable general practitioner in [[London]].
* Ethel Huxley (1866–1941), married her sister's widower John Collier in 1889.

Huxley's relationships 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..." [goes on nevertheless to give strong opinions of the Afghans, at that time causing plenty of trouble to the [[British Raj]]—see [[Second Anglo-Afghan War]]] "There, you plague—ever your affec. Daddy, THH." (letter 7 December 1878, Huxley L 1900)<ref>{{cite web| url = http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/letters/78.html| title = T. H. Huxley Letters and Diary 1878| access-date = 15 January 2011| archive-date = 8 August 2011| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110808002124/http://aleph0.clarku.edu/huxley/letters/78.html| url-status = live}}</ref>

Huxley's descendants include children of Leonard Huxley:

* [[Julian 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 (novel)|Eyeless in Gaza]]'' 1936, ''[[The Doors of Perception]]'' 1954).
* [[Andrew Huxley|Sir Andrew Huxley]] OM PRS 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]], are treated in the [[Huxley family]].

===Mental problems in the family===
Biographers have sometimes noted the occurrence of mental illness in the Huxley family. His father became "sunk in worse than childish imbecility of mind",<ref>letter THH to eldest sister Lizzie 1853 HP 31.21</ref> and later died in [[Barming Asylum]]; brother George suffered from "extreme mental anxiety"<ref>THH to Lizzie 1858 HP 31.24</ref> and died in 1863 leaving serious debts. Brother James, a well-known psychiatrist and Superintendent of Kent County Asylum, was at 55 "as near mad as any sane man can be".<ref>THH to Lizzie HP 31.44</ref> His favourite daughter, the artistically talented Mady (Marian), who became the first wife of artist [[John Collier (Pre-Raphaelite painter)|John Collier]], was troubled by mental illness for years. She died of pneumonia in her mid-twenties.<ref>THH to JT 1887 HP 9.164</ref><ref>{{Harvnb|Desmond|1997|}} pp. 175–176</ref>

About Huxley himself, we have a more complete record. As a young apprentice to a medical practitioner, aged thirteen or fourteen, Huxley was taken to watch a post-mortem dissection. Afterwards, he sank into a "deep lethargy" and, though Huxley ascribed this to dissection poisoning, Bibby<ref>{{Harvnb|Bibby|1972|}} p. 7</ref> and others may be right to suspect that emotional shock precipitated the [[clinical depression|depression]]. Huxley recuperated on a farm, looking thin and ill.

The next episode we know of in Huxley's life when he suffered a debilitating depression was on the third voyage of HMS ''Rattlesnake'' in 1848.<ref>{{Harvnb|Huxley|1935}} Chapter 5 'Wanderings of a human soul'</ref> Huxley had further periods of depression at the end of 1871,<ref>{{Harvnb|Desmond|1997|}} p. 27</ref> and again in 1873.<ref>{{Harvnb|Desmond|1997|}} p. 49</ref> Finally, in 1884 he sank into another depression, and this time it precipitated his decision to retire in 1885, at the age of 60.<ref>{{Harvnb|Desmond|1997|}} p. 151</ref> This is enough to indicate the way depression (or perhaps a moderate [[bipolar disorder]]) interfered with his life, yet unlike some of the other family members, he was able to function extremely well at other times.

The problems continued sporadically into the third generation. Two of Leonard's sons suffered serious depression: Trevennen committed suicide in 1914 and Julian suffered a breakdown in 1913,<ref>{{Harvnb|Clark|1968}}</ref> and five more later in life.