The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin

The earliest records of the family show the Darwins to have been
substantial yeomen residing on the northern borders of
Lincolnshire, close to Yorkshire. The name is now very unusual in
England, but I believe that it is not unknown in the neighbourhood
of Sheffield and in Lancashire. Down to the year 1600 we find the
name spelt in a variety of ways¿Derwent, Darwen, Darwynne, etc.
It is possible, therefore, that the family migrated at some unknown
date from Yorkshire, Cumberland, or Derbyshire, where Derwent
occurs as the name of a river.
The first ancestor of whom we know was one William Darwin,
who lived, about the year 1500, at Marton, near Gainsborough. His
great grandson, Richard Darwyn, inherited land at Marton and
elsewhere, and in his will, dated 1584, "bequeathed the sum of 3s.
4d. towards the settynge up of the Queene's Majestie's armes over
the quearie (choir) doore in the parishe churche of Marton." (We
owe a knowledge of these earlier members of the family to
researches amongst the wills at Lincoln, made by the well-known
genealogist, Colonel Chester.)