This is is biographical book. In the year 1825 Ealing was as quiet a country village as could be found within a dozen miles of Hyde Park Corner. Here stood a large semi-public school, which had risen to the front rank in numbers and reputation under Dr. Nicholas, of Wadham College, Oxford, who in 1791 became the son-in-law and successor of the previous master. The senior assistant-master in this school was George Huxley, a tall, dark, rather full-faced man, quick tempered, and distinguished, in his son’s words, by “that glorious firmness which one’s enemies called obstinacy. ” In the year 1810 he had married Rachel Withers; she bore five sons and three daughters, of whom one son and one daughter died in infancy; the seventh and youngest surviving child was Thomas Henry. George Huxley, the master at Ealing, was the second son of Thomas Huxley and Margaret James, who were married at St. Michael’s, Coventry, on September 8, 1773. This Thomas Huxley continued to live at Coventry until his death in January 1796, when he left behind him a large family and no very great wealth.
