90 Facts About Edward Aveling

Edward Bibbins Aveling was an English comparative anatomist and popular spokesman for Darwinian evolution, atheism, and socialism.

Edward Aveling was an organizer of the mass movement of the unskilled workers and the unemployed in the late 1880s unto the early 1890s, and a delegate to the International Socialist Workers' Congress of 1889.

Edward Aveling was born on 29 November 1849 in Stoke Newington, in north-east London, England.

In 1863, Edward Aveling attended the West of England Dissenters' Proprietary School in Taunton.

Edward Aveling was sent there together with his brother Frederick W Aveling, who later became headmaster of the same school.

Edward Aveling was a successful and diligent student, receiving a gold medal in chemistry, a first in practical physiology and histology, and a silver medal in botany.

Edward Aveling studied medicine with John Russell Reynolds, who in 1867 had just succeeded Sir William Jenner in the chair of medicine; and clinical medicine under Sydney Ringer.

Edward Aveling was elected as a member of the College of Preceptors on 25 November 1871.

Edward Aveling read a paper "On the Teaching of Botany in Schools" at the monthly evening meeting of the College of Preceptors on 12 March 1879.

Edward Aveling had not yet publicly emerged as an atheist, that would be four months later.

On 30 July 1872, Edward Aveling married Isabel "Bell" Campbell Frank, the daughter of a Leadenhall poulterer.

Edward Aveling took out four separate column advertisements in Nature all grouped together.

Edward Aveling had been recommended as a Fellow by the botanists George Henslow and Maxwell Tylden Masters, the zoologist James Murie, as well as the biologist St George Jackson Mivart, who had written On the Genesis of Species.

In 1878 Edward Aveling was made a Fellow of University College.

Dr Edward Aveling made a statement of the progress the class had made during his conduct of it, concluding with the assertion that the real reason for his dismissal was his avowal of certain religious and political views of an unpopular nature.

In 1877, Edward Aveling published his "Physiological Tables, for the use of students".

Edward Aveling was in the Arts Faculty at New College London, Hampstead, teaching Chemistry and Natural History as a "Lecturer pro tem".

Edward Aveling's position was as his successor, and he was therefore essentially training men in science for the Christian Ministry.

Newth had written elementary textbooks on natural philosophy in the early 1850s, thus together with Edwin Lankester's own writings in this field, it is not difficult to see Edward Aveling carrying on this tradition in his own instructional works.

From 1872 to 1876, Edward Aveling was a teacher of elementary physics and botany at Frances Buss's North London Collegiate School for Girls.

Edward Aveling examined boys in botany and physiology during June 1872 from the Orphan Working School in Maitland Park.

Edward Aveling spoke in very high terms, terms far too high, of the lecture and prophesied all sorts of good things in the way of future work.

In November 1882, Edward Aveling heard Carlo Alfredo Piatti perform Beethoven's Trio in G major at St James's Hall, London, accompanied by Wilma Neruda and Ludwig Strauss.

When Eleanor and Edward Aveling came together in 1890 to write the dramatic notices in Ernest Belfort Bax's Time, there is mention of a Gilbert and Sullivan opera, The Gondoliers.

Edward Aveling had seen at Drury Lane the English composer Arthur Thomas's opera "Esmeralda", as well as the Scottish composer Alexander Mackenzie's opera "Colomba".

From September 1879 Edward Aveling gave evening science classes every Wednesday and Thursday at the Hall of Science, 142, Old Street, in East London, which was the headquarters of the National Secular Society.

Edward Aveling gave evening classes in elementary botany, advanced physiology, elementary mathematics and advanced chemistry.

Edward Aveling himself gave regular accounts of these parliamentary debates and controversies in The National Reformer, and he was thankful for what he called the "gratuitous advertisement" for his science classes at the Hall of Science saying that enrolments had increased due to all the free publicity.

In 1880 at their annual conference Edward Aveling was elected vice-president of the National Secular Society.

Edward Aveling gave a lecture "On the Relation between Science and Freethought" in which he maintained that most scientists are consciously or unconsciously atheists.

Edward Aveling had accompanied Bradlaugh along with his two daughters into Westminster Hall, at his forcible expulsion from the house in August 1881.

Edward Aveling became a member of the regular staff of The Freethinker in January 1882.

In 1883, Edward Aveling became the partner of Eleanor "Tussy" Marx, the daughter of Karl Marx, and was ushered into the inner circle of British socialism.

On 17 March 1883, Edward Aveling attended the funeral of Karl Marx at Highgate Cemetery in London together with Eleanor, Charles Longuet, Paul Lafargue, Friedrich Engels, Helena Demuth, Georg Lochner, Friedrich Lessner, Wilhelm Liebknecht, Carl Schorlemmer, Ernest Radford, Gottlieb Lembke and Sir Ray Lankester.

On 20 April 1884, Edward Aveling delivered a speech on "Socialism and Freethought" at the Baskerville Hall in Birmingham.

Edward Aveling was jealous of Aveling's abilities as a theoretician, for Aveling was a brilliant scientist, a Fellow of University College, Vice-President of the National Secular Society, a member of the London School Board for Westminster, and the author of many books on secularism and Darwinism.

Hyndman had accused Eleanor of forgery, and wanted Edward Aveling to resign from the SDF as he had done so from the NSS because of Bradlaugh's charges of financial mismanagement or, as Morris puts it: "the malversation of funds".

Edward Aveling summoned me to go up to Engels on Saturday important business: I was uncomfortable rather wondering what it was.

Edward Aveling resumed her gathering of news items from abroad, now under the title "Record of the Revolutionary International Movement", having used a similar title contributing to To-day: monthly magazine of scientific socialism.

In 1891 Edward Aveling rewrote and published these lessons as The Student's Marx.

Edward Aveling translated Engels' Socialism: Utopian and Scientific a work first published in 1880 that Sir Isaiah Berlin described as "the best brief autobiographical appreciation of Marxism by one of its creators".

In 1886, Eleanor Marx and Edward Aveling travelled to New York on the SS City of Chicago arriving on 31 August to tour the United States and to campaign for the Socialist Labor Party of America.

For Tussy and Edward Aveling have been corresponding with American free-thinkers about the possibility of a trip to that country, and would like to combine it with yours.

Edward Aveling spoke clearly and deliberately, expressing his gratification at the manner of their reception.

Edward Aveling gave his own individual account "notes" of this first American journey that appear to have had less attention giving to it, presumably because it appeared after his second one from 1888, and has escaped the notice of biographers.

Edward Aveling refers to her in some places as "Saccharissa".

On 19 May 1887 Edward Aveling gave a lecture on "Radicalism and Socialism" at The Communist Club, that was then situated at 49, Tottenham Street.

On 7 December 1887, Edward Aveling lectured on "Despotism from a Socialist Standpoint" at the Clerkenwell Hall of the Socialist League.

Edward Aveling told Eleanor he had been invited to put on three of his plays in New York, Chicago and 'God knows where else besides'.

Edward Aveling was chairman of the Central Committee for a Legal Eight Hours' Day.

Edward Aveling gave many lectures on the legal eight hours' day.

When Charles Bradlaugh died in 1891 as a Liberal MP for Northampton, Edward Aveling was encouraged to stand as a candidate by the Social Democratic Federation in Northampton and the Gasworkers' union.

At the beginning of 1892, Edward Aveling was closely working with Engels on his translation of Socialism: Utopian and Scientific: "spent the whole of this morning in conference with Edward Aveling, sorting out his translation of Entwicklung des Sozialismus".

Edward Aveling assisted John Lister in his campaign as a candidate for the ILPs first parliamentary seat at the Halifax by-election in February 1893.

Edward and Eleanor then moved to 7 Gray's Inn Square; after which, Aveling went to the Isles of Scilly for seven weeks for convalescence for his kidney problems.

Edward Aveling wrote a series of travel articles for Robert Blatchford's, weekly socialist newspaper "The Clarion" using the name 'Alec Nelson'.

Edward Aveling advised Edward to refuse the nomination as he surmised, correctly, that it was a political trap.

Eleanor, Edward Aveling, Friedrich Lessner and Eduard Bernstein were in the boat on what was a very stormy day.

Edward Aveling was a founding member and was elected to the National Administrative Council of the Independent Labour Party by the 1893 Conference which established the organisation.

In Ernest Belfort Bax and James Leigh Joynes' To-Day: The Monthly Magazine of Scientific Socialism, in which Edward Aveling reviewed, amongst others, dramatic works on Ibsen and Shakespeare.

Edward Aveling wrote more than ten successful plays, including an adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter that was brought out at the Olympic on 5 June 1888.

Edward Aveling's last known piece was Judith Shakespeare, adapted from William Black's novel, and performed at the Royalty on 6 February 1894.

Edward Aveling has sold about half a dozen or more pieces which he had quietly manufactured; some have been played in the provinces with success, some he has brought out here himself with Tussy at small entertainments, and they have taken very much with the people that are most interested in them, viz.

Edward Aveling prepared a fairy extravaganza for Christmas 1889 entitled "Snow White" to be included among the dramatis personae were seven dwarfs.

Edward Aveling published a considerable amount of poetry in Progress that has been hardly acknowledged.

Edward Aveling gave his first public lecture on the poet Shelley in the Hall of Science on 10 August 1879, with Annie Besant in the chair.

Edward Aveling addressed the close relationship between the realms of the scientific and the poetical.

Edward Aveling gave a lecture series on Shakespeare at the Hall of Science in 1881.

Edward Aveling started using the British Museum Reading Room in 1882 and, allegedly, he approached and introduced himself to Eleanor Marx there.

Edward Aveling had taken over as "Interim Editor" from April 1883 to February 1884.

The casus is that Edward Aveling has a legitimate wife whom he cannot get rid of de jure, although he has been de facto rid of her for years.

Edward Aveling played Helmer, George Bernard Shaw played Krogstad, and Eleanor played Nora.

Edward Aveling sees our lop-sided modern society suffering from too much man, and he has been born the woman's poet.

Edward Aveling wants to aid in the revolutionising, with that revolution which is an evolution, the marriage relationship.

Edward Aveling would have none of these women so dear to the common-place man of whom the poet of the common-place, Tennyson, has warbled.

Edward Aveling dealt with the whole subject of Ibsen's dramatic work broadly and generously.

Edward Aveling was a scientist by qualification, but was an excellent popularizer in print and practice.

On 9 August 1881 Edward Aveling had sent Darwin a copy of his book with an inscription The Student's Darwin.

Edward Aveling was a popularizer of the German zoologist Ernst Haeckel, who himself was probably the greatest popularizer of Darwin, earning him the sobriquet 'The German Darwin'.

In 1882 Edward Aveling corresponded with Haeckel who had recently read out in a lecture at Eisenach, in Thuringia, Germany, an "irreligious letter" of Darwin's written in 1879 to a former young student of Haeckel's who had studied at the University of Jena, the Russian Nicolai Alexandrovitch von Mengden.

When Edward Aveling wrote to inform Haeckel that this censorship had taken place in Nature, at first Haeckel did not believe him.

In 1897, Edward Aveling published for the first time a letter of Charles Darwin's to Karl Marx that had been written in 1873.

In 1897, Edward Aveling left Eleanor and on 8 June that year secretly married a young actress, Eva Frye, who had appeared in one of his plays, using his pen-name Alec Nelson.

Edward Aveling had suffered from what the family physician Bryan Donkin had originally diagnosed in 1885 as a kidney stone.

Edward Aveling was operated on, in what appears to have only been an exploratory operation by the surgeon Christopher Heath at University College Hospital.

Edward Aveling was widely reviled amongst socialist circles as having caused Eleanor to take her own life on this occasion.

Edward Aveling's body was cremated at Woking Crematorium, Surrey, three days later.

Edward Aveling was disliked by many of his contemporaries for his alleged tendency to borrow money from everyone.

Edward Aveling shared the editorship of the paper with Morris for the first year, and Morris admired his command of Scientific Socialism, both as a lecturer and writer.

Edward Aveling became her friend; he was a married man who had broken with his first family.