Emma Darwin, Charles Darwin's wife and first cousin, was born Emma Wedgwood, the eighth and youngest child of Josiah Wedgwood II and Bessy Allen. Her father was the eldest son of the famous pottery manufacturer, Josiah Wedgwood I. Her mother was one of eleven children brought up in a remote country house in Wales. Emma was part of a large and lively extended family, Unitarian in religion, liberal in politics, and with links to the intellectual elite of the country. Her immediate family lived at Maer Hall in rural Staffordshire, a few miles from the Etruria pottery works.