[3] Two years later, Henry Fawcett reportedly attended the 1860 Oxford evolution debate, during which he was asked whether he thought Bishop Samuel Wilberforce had actually read the Origin of Species.

Ready to recriminate, Wilberforce swung round to him scowling, but stepped back and bit his tongue on noting that the speaker was the blind economist.

[4] At the next meeting (in September 1861) of the British Association in Manchester, Henry Fawcett defended the logic behind Charles Darwin's theories.

After repeated defeats as a Liberal Party candidate, Henry Fawcett was elected Member of Parliament for Brighton in 1865.

[7] He introduced many other innovations, including parcel post, postal orders, and licensing changes to permit payphones and trunk lines.

Henry Fawcett's career was cut short by his premature death from pleurisy in November 1884, aged 51.

There are statues of him in Salisbury Market Square and in Victoria Embankment Gardens (Henry Fawcett Memorial) near Charing Cross in central London.