 Crick was the first son of Harry Crick (1887–1948) and Annie Elizabeth Crick (née Wilkins; 1879–1955).He was born on 8 June 1916 and raised in Weston Favell, then a small village near the English town of Northampton, in which Crick's father and uncle ran the family's boot and shoe factory.His grandfather, Walter Drawbridge Crick (1857–1903), an amateur naturalist, wrote a survey of local foraminifera (single-celled protists with shells), corresponded with Charles Darwin, and had two gastropods (snails or slugs) named after him.