Edward Bibbins Aveling (29 November 1849 – 2 August 1898) was an English comparative anatomist, botanist"Aveling, Edward Bibbins", in: A Biographical Index of deceased British and Irish Botanists. Compiled by James Britten, F.L.S., and George S. Boulger, F.L.S., F.G.S. 2nd ed. (Taylor and Francis: Red Lion Court, Fleet Street, London, E.,C. 1931), p.12. and popular spokesman for Darwinian evolution, atheism, and socialism.Edward Aveling, The Curse of Capital (London: Freethought Publishing, 1884). "I am an evolutionist, and as an evolutionist I have come to the conclusion that Christianity is a bane and not a blessing. Equally, as an evolutionist, I have come to the conclusion that the present system of production – the capitalistic system of production – is a bane and not a blessing to the world at large. It is only a blessing to a comparatively few people. It is a distinct evil to anybody but that comparatively few. " He was also a journalist, editor, playwright, actor, short story writer and poet. Aveling was the author of scientific works and numerous literary and political pamphlets many that were published (and republished) by The Freethought Publishing Company; he is perhaps best known for his popular work The Student's Darwin (1881) that appeared in their 'International Freethought and Science' series; he also translated the first volume of Karl Marx's Das Kapital and Friedrich Engels' Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.

Aveling was elected vice-president of the National Secular Society from 1880–84, and was a member of the Democratic Federation and then in August 1884 he was elected to the executive council of the Social Democratic Federation, he was also a founding member of the Socialist League and the Independent Labour Party. During the year-long imprisonment of George William Foote for blasphemy, he took over as interim editor for The Freethinker as well as Foote's monthly magazine Progress. With William Morris, he was the sub-editor of Commonweal. He 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. For fifteen years, he was the partner of Eleanor Marx, the youngest daughter of Karl Marx, and co-authored many works with her, and co-edited works of Marx. After her tragic death on 31 March 1898 (by suicide, allegedly precipitated by Aveling's secret marriage a year earlier), he continued and published: The Eastern Question by Karl Marx- A Reprint of Letters written 1853–56 dealing with the events of the Crimean War (1898) and Value, Price, and Profit (1898) Both these last works were signed simply: "Edited by Eleanor Marx-Aveling, with a preface by Edward Aveling."

Biography

Early years and education Aveling was born on 29 November 1849 in Stoke Newington, in north-east London, England. The fifth of eight children of Reverend Thomas William Baxter Aveling (1815–1884), a Congregationalist minister, and his wife, Mary Ann (died in 1877), daughter of Thomas Goodall, farmer and innkeeper, of Wisbech (now in Cambridgeshire).On the extended history of Aveling's family, in particular his mother, father and siblings, see Chushichi Tsuzuki, The Life of Eleanor Marx: A Socialist Tragedy (Oxford: Clarendon, 1967); Yvonne Kapp, Eleanor Marx: Vol 1, Family Life, 1855–1883 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1972); Rachel Holmes, Eleanor Marx: A Life (London: Bloomsbury, 2014); Deborah Lavin, Edward Aveling, 'Son-in-Law of Karl Marx': A Victorian Enigma (Michael Wicks, 2021), esp. Chap. 1,2 & 3.

In 1863, Aveling attended the West of England Dissenters' Proprietary School in Taunton. He was sent there together with his brother Frederick W. Aveling (1851–1937), who later became headmaster of the same school.John Brown, Independent Witness. One hundred and fifty years of Taunton School (Taunton School, 1997), pp. 10-11. There is a record of prizes awarded to him in an old school register from 1863 to 1866.Deborah Lavin, Edward Aveling (2021), op. cit., p. 78. In 1863, he won prizes for Greek, German, Arithmetic, and Grammar, and was also awarded a certificate in French. The following year, he obtained prizes for Arithmetic and Algebra, together with certificates for French, Greek, Euclid, and German. In 1865 he won prizes for Mathematics, Latin, and Greek, and in 1866 for writing and mapping.Deborah Lavin, Edward Aveling, 'Son-in-Law of Karl Marx': A Victorian Enigma (Michael Wicks, 2021), Chapter Five. Stage Villains, p. 78. Of particular importance is Aveling's early study of German. The English dissenting colleges laid great emphasis on the study of German higher criticism (in the fields of history, philology, science, and theology), as it was seen to challenge and undermine Anglican orthodoxy. See John W. Rogerson, "Philosophy and the Rise of Biblical Criticism: England & Germany", in: England and Germany. Studies in Theological Diplomacy. Edited by Stephen Sykes. (Laing: Frankfurt a. M., 1982), pp. 63-79; and John W. Rogerson, Old Testament Criticism in the Nineteenth Century (SPCK: London, 1984), pp. 158-179.

University College London

As a medical student at University College London, he 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. In 1867, he won a medical entrance exhibition of £25.University College, London. Calendar, Session 1881.-1882.(London: 1881), Exhibitioners, Scholars, etc., p. 34. He studied surgery under John Marshall (1818–1891) and the English anatomist Christopher Heath (1835–1905), who was assistant surgeon and teacher of operative surgery at University College Hospital. Aveling trained in minor surgery and the use of medical instruments with Matthew Berkeley Hill (1834–1892), professor of clinical surgery and teacher of practical surgery; and with William Morse Graily Hewit (1828–1893), professor of midwifery at University College and obstetric physician to University College Hospital, he took midwifery and gynecology. Based on Lavin's research. See Lavin (2021), op. cit., pp. 129-130.

Aveling studied medicine with John Russell Reynolds (1828–1896), who in 1867 had just succeeded Sir William Jenner in the chair of medicine; and clinical medicine (materia medica) under Sydney Ringer (1835–1910). In 1869, he transferred from the medical to the science faculty, winning a £40 exhibition to study botany and zoology in the subject of zoology.Yvonne Kapp Eleanor Marx. Volume I: Family Life (1855–1887) Lawrence and Wishart, 1972; Tsuzuki, Chushichi. The Life of Eleanor Marx: 1855–1898: A Socialist Tragedy. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967, chap. IV. Dr. Edward Aveling It has recently been claimed that it was under the direct influence of Ray Lankester, who also lectured at the associated teaching hospital across Gower Street, University College Hospital, that Aveling made this switch from the medical school to study zoology.Michael Boulter, Bloomsbury Scientists Book: Science and Art in the Wake of Darwin (UCL Press, 2017), p. 35.

Aveling graduated with a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) Honours degree in Zoology in 1870.Paul Henderson, "Edward Bibbens Aveling" in A. Thomas Lane (ed.), Biographical Dictionary of European Labor Leaders. In Two Volumes. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995; p. 36. Thomas Henry Huxley was his examiner; Aveling gave the following account in his obituary of Huxley from 1896: "As I remember well, he came himself to collect the papers that we had written in the afternoon of one of the three examination days. Of the six or seven students who were in the exam, I happened to be the only one who had written for the full three hours that had been set for the exam. When Huxley took my work from me, he said to me very kindly: "I am pleased to see that three hours did not seem too long for you to answer only three questions. I wouldn't be surprised if you are the first on the list."Aveling "Thomas Henry Huxley Der Freund und Erklärer Darwins", in: Die neue Zeit. 1896, S.89. At an early age, his secularist period and not yet a socialist, Aveling's respect for Huxley's literary style remained key: "The scientific precision, the power of generalization, met with in Professor Huxley's works, have not their value lessened by the exquisite style of that distinguished writer."On Reading, in The Book-worm, and other Sketches (1878), p. 79. It is not difficult to see the profound influence of Huxley's early conception of Science and Religion (1859) on the young Aveling, with Huxley proclaiming science and religion as "mortal enemies","...through thirty years of polemic, Huxley earned his reputation as the leading Victorian symbol of religion and science in opposition. Huxley became the supreme model of the antireligious scientist..." Sheridan Gilley and Ann Loades, "Thomas Henry Huxley: The War between Science and Religion", in: The Journal of Religion, 1981, vol. 61, pp. 285-308; here p. 294. as well as his passionate project for the so-called "New Reformation", wanting to see "the foot of science on the necks of her enemies."A. Desmond, Huxley: From Devil's Disciple to Evolution's High Priest (Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley, 1998), p. 252.

Cambridge From 1870 to 1872, he worked as an assistant or demonstrator to the physiologist Michael Foster in Cambridge. Foster, one of his former teachers at UCL, was then an associate professor at Trinity College, Cambridge. At the same time, Foster was a professor of physiology at the Royal Institute (as was Huxley). On the days that Foster held lectures in London, Aveling accompanied him and prepared at the laboratory all his apparatus and experiments. He wrote that on many days he was in contact with Huxley and the professor of physics John Tyndall: "Quite often I had to borrow apparatuses or reagents from both of them. Tyndall . . . was always more or less unfriendly and either patronizingly condescending, and sometimes downright crude. Huxley, on the other hand, showed himself always as the embodiment of kindness, courtesy and willingness."

College of Preceptors Aveling was elected as a member of the College of Preceptors on 25 November 1871.The Educational Times, and Journal of the College of Preceptors, Vol. XXIV. New Series, No.128, 1 December 1871, p. 206. It was one of the first professional organizations for teachers and it pioneered formal training by examination for teachers. 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. George Henslow was in the chair.Henslow was a close colleague of Aveling's at the Birkbeck Mechanics' Institute where they both taught. See Lavin (2021), op. cit., p. 180f. However, by 1877 Thomas Dunman had succeeded Aveling as Professor of Physiology at the Birkbeck Institution. His lecture began with the images of working-class children escaping the pollution of the town situated amidst flowers, citing lines from Shelley's "To a Skylark": "faint with too much sweet"."Like a rose embowered / In its own green leaves,/ By warm winds deflowered,/ Till the scent it gives/ Makes faint with too much sweet those/ heavy - wingèd thieves:" The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley. Edited by Thomas Hutchinson. (Oxford University Press, 1952), p. 603: 50-55 His peroration at the end was Darwinian, addressing the apparent perfection of Nature. With the acclaimed Christian Darwinist beside him in the chair, he does, however, refer to "gigantic blunders in the universe". Aveling had not yet publicly emerged as an atheist; that would be four months later. What is remarkable here is his emphasis upon the importance of teaching Charles Darwin in schools in 1879.

First marriage