The Huxley family is a British family; several of its members have excelled in science, medicine, arts and literature. The family also includes members who occupied senior positions in the public service of the United Kingdom. The patriarch of the family was the zoologist and comparative anatomist Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895). His grandsons include Aldous Huxley (author of Brave New World and The Doors of Perception) and his brother Julian Huxley (an evolutionary biologist and the first director of UNESCO) and the Nobel laureate physiologist Andrew Huxley. Family tree Thomas Henry Huxley Thomas Henry Huxley (1825–1895) was an English biologist. Known as "Darwin's Bulldog" for his defence of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. Mostly a self-educated man, he had an extraordinary influence on the British educated public. He was instrumental in developing scientific education in Britain, and opposed those Christian leaders who tried to stifle scientific debate. He was a member of eight Royal Commissions and two other commissions. A noted unbeliever, he used the term "agnostic" to describe his attitude to theism. Though Huxley was a great comparative anatomist and invertebrate zoologist, perhaps his most notable scientific achievement was his work on human evolution. Starting in 1858, Huxley gave lectures and published papers which analysed the zoological position of man. The best were collected in a landmark work: Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (1863). This contained two themes: first, humans are related to the great apes, and second, the species has evolved in a similar manner to all other forms of life. These were ideas which the careful and cautious Darwin had only hinted at in The Origin of Species, but with which Huxley was in full agreement. In 1855, he married Henrietta Anne Heathorn (1825–1915), an English émigrée whom he had met in Sydney. They had five daughters and three sons: Noel Huxley (1856–1860), died aged 4. Jessie Oriana Huxley (1858–1927), married architect Fred Waller in 1877. Marian Huxley (1859–1887) married artist John Collier in 1879. Leonard Huxley (1860–1933), married Julia Arnold. Rachel Huxley (1862–1934) married civil engineer Alfred Eckersley in 1884. Henrietta (Nettie) Huxley (1863–1940), married Harold Roller, travelled Europe as a singer. Henry Huxley (1865–1946), became a fashionable general practitioner in London. Ethel Huxley (1866–1941) married artist John Collier (widower of sister) in 1889. John Collier (son-in-law) John Collier was not a Huxley by birth, but by marriage twice over: both his wives were