Henry Freke

Henry Freke (1813-1888) was an Irish physician and early evolutionary writer.

Freke proposed an evolutionary theory in 1851 and more fully in a book for 1861. He took a B. A. at Trinity in 1840, his M. B. in 1845 and his M.D. in 1855. He worked as a physician in various hospitals in Dublin and worked at the first Irish lunatic asylum founded by Jonathan Swift.

His early writings in the Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science experimented with evolutionary ideas such as all organisms descending from a single germ. He is credited for developing the concept of negative entropy.

Freke argued to have published on evolution before Charles Darwin. In 1851 he wrote a pamphlet that claimed animals and plants had evolved from a single filament. He sent a copy of the pamphlet to Darwin who described the writing style as "ill-written" and "beyond my scope". However, in the Historical Sketch for the 6th Edition of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, Freke is listed an as early evolution proponent. On page 83 of his On the Origin of Species by Means of Organic Affinity (1861), Freke developed a theory of pangenesis.