Village Darwin plaques unveiled

A service was held 170 years after Charles Darwin's marriage ceremony

Two plaques marking links between Charles Darwin and a Staffordshire village have been unveiled.

A service was held on Thursday at St Peter's church in Maer, where Darwin married his cousin Emma Wedgwood exactly 170 years earlier.

Both are grandchildren of pottery firm founder Josiah Wedgwood and one of the plaques was donated by the company.

The Shrewsbury-born scientist will be remembered on the 200th anniversary of his birth, on 12 February.

Josiah Wedgwood was Darwin's maternal grandfather. Darwin's paternal grandfather, the celebrated philosopher Erasmus Darwin, had lived in Lichfield, Staffordshire.

Charles Darwin, who died on 19 April 1882, published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859.