The Bicentenary Celebration 1809-2009
1809 - 1882 Charles Robert Darwin was born in the small market town of He was the fifth of six children born to Robert Waring Darwin (1766-1848) His mother Susannah died when Darwin was eight years old. He grew up watched over by his elder sisters and various maidservants. It was a comfortable and cosseted existence for the young boy known as Charley or Bobby by his family. He was described as a naughty child, often stealing fruit from the orchard's at either side of his parents house. He enjoyed making up wild stories and always wanting to be centre of attention in his family. Often a clumsy child he was also extremely athletic and a swift runner. Educated firstly at home by his younger sister Caroline, in the spring of 1818 he attended Revd. Case's grammar school in Shrewsbury. It may seem quite ironic but he was in fact a lazy young man and a slow learner. He was also rather shy but took great pride in showing off his athletic abilities to the other students. His interest in natural history was sparked at a very young age. He delighted in collecting insects, minerals, coins, stamps amongst other little bits n bobs. He had an interest in the variability of plants, maybe being influenced by the gardens his father kept at the house. His mother showed him how to change the colour of flowers by feeding them water mixed with food colouring. At nine years old Darwin was sent to Revd. Samuel Butler's school in Shrewsbury as a boarder. Luckily for him it was just across the river to his fathers house so he was able to visit home quite often during the week. Whilst he was there he learnt the classics, ancient history and Greek, all of which he found extremely boring. He struggled terribly with Greek and could never seem to memorize the words and sentences needed to form conversations. He was not inspired by the subjects he learnt at school and amongst his only pleasures there were the historical plays of Shakespeare, the poems of Byron, Thomson, His interest in natural history was increased by events which
Charles spent many summers with his family hiking in northern Wales. There was also a book which he read during his youth that influenced him greatly. At sixteen his father took him out of school. He was getting poor grades, and was lazy and not paying attention to his studies. Quite ironic to think his father declared that he would be a disgrace to himself and his family, because he cared for nothing but Poor Charles had no focus in life after leaving school, therefore his father decided he should follow in the footsteps of his family, the latest in a long line of doctors. It was decided he would be admitted into the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, which was known as having one of Europe's most distinguished medical schools.
During the summer before he started college, Charles acted as assistant in his fathers medical practice, treating children, women and poor people. To his fathers surprise, Charles seemed to enjoy medicine a great deal. He started college in October 1825, along with his brother who joined him there to study for his exams, having completed most of his medical studies at Cambridge. It was common knowledge that Darwin absolutely loathed the sight of blood, and it is this that is said to have prevented him from pursuing a career in medicine. To a certain extent this was true, the main thing that stopped him was that he found the studies a complete bore and that made him wonder what his father had even seen in him to make him believe he could become a good doctor. Once again Charles' interest in natural history was nurtured outside of his studies at the university. This was accomplished in various different ways. After his first year at medical school he spent the summer hiking around northern Wales and reading Revd. Gilbert White's book, ''The Natural History of Selbourne'' (published 1789). Through this book Darwin learnt to appreciate the beauty of birds, insects and other creatures. In February 1826 Charles met John Edmonstone a freed black slave who lived just down the street from where he was lodging. They soon became good friends. John made his living by teaching medical students the fine art of taxidermy. Darwin paid him to teach him how to stuff animals. Whilst learning this he also had the added bonus of talking to Edmonstone about his homeland in South America. This sent his imagination into overdrive with vivid images of tropical rainforests, which sparked his desire to travel to South America, a dream which would be fulfilled a few years later. The taxidermy skills he learned were to be indispensable during his voyage on the Beagle. During his second year at medical school, Darwin found that he was spending a lot of time alone as his brother Erasmus had left for London to study anatomy. He began to spend most of his free time in the Edinburgh Natural History Museum and became friends with the curator Mr William Macgillivray. He took Charles under his wing and taught him a great deal about animal anatomy and botany and also inspired him to start making notes on his observations and it was this habit that proved vitally important during his later voyage aboard the Beagle. It was also in his second year that Charles started attending meetings of the Plinian Society. This was a science club which focused on the merits of studying the world from a natural point of view as opposed to a supernatural one. On the 27 March 1827 he gave his first speech before the Society on the marine biology of the Firth of Forth. During the winter and spring of his second year at university, Darwin forged a friendship with Zoology Professor Robert Grant. They would go for long walks together normally the Firth of Forth, discussing marine biology and collecting marine specimens. Darwin started to dissect some of these, albeit poorly. Grant taught him how to make observations in nature and how to spot the more important specimens. Also during these walks Grant filled Darwin's head with evolutionary ideas, especially those of the French naturalist Lamarck. Robert Grant admired him a great deal. Darwin wasn't exactly sure what to make of such heretical evolutionary talk. Towards the end of his second year, it was brought to his fathers notice that Charles was once again not taking his studies seriously. Charles quit medical school for good in April 1827, and returned home. Fearing that his son would end up living the life of an idle gentleman, his father decided that Charles should study for the clergy, which was a very respectable profession for a young man of that era. He thought this was an excellent plan, especially as members of the clergy were usually quite keen on engaging in He was very keen on leading a small parish village church, spending his free time studying the flora and fauna of the local countryside. This was obviously Darwin's idea of heaven. It was also at this time that he started to take an interest in his sister's close friend Fanny Owen, and often visited her at her father's house. In January he started his first term at Cambridge University, Christ's College. His cousin William Fox, introduced him to entomology, and it wasn't long before it was safe to say he was addicted to his hobby. Much to the chagrin of Fanny Owen who often chastised him for 'wasting time with his beetles'. It wasn't long before Charles had to make a choice between his love for beetles and his love for her, the beetles won. Beetle collecting taught him many scientific skills, including how to identify different species, how to correctly catalogue specimens, how to work efficiently in the field and different methods of comparative anatomy.
During his last year at Cambridge, Darwin met and became the devoted follower of John Stevens Henslow who was Professor of botany. Through their close friendship Charles learned a great deal about the practice of natural science. He finished his final year at Cambridge University, completely his final exam and scoring in 10th place. It was Henslow who gave Charles the opportunity to travel on the survey ship, HMS Beagle, as naturalist and commander Robert FitzRoy's gentleman companion. The ship set sail from Plymouth on December 27th 1831.
He was often seasick and through the worst would spend his time lying in a hammock and spent as much time as possible ashore. He was always adventurous, riding with gauchos in Argentina, battling through armed political rebellions. On shooting and collecting expeditions he justified his earlier devotion to the sport. Charles also once rescued the expedition by rescuing a boat from a tidal wave. Darwin recorded many of his observations and specimens in field notebooks. Later he would record his experiences in a diary. This became the basis of his famous book, Journal of Researches (1839). Later this would become known as Voyage of the Beagle. (This title was first used on the title page of a 1905 edition).
He was influenced greatly by men of science such as astronomer Sir John Herschel, traveller Alexander von Humboldt and geologist Charles Lyell. Lyell offered him a new way of understanding nature. He showed how small, slow and gradual changes over vast periods of time could produce immense changes. Non miraculous and natural causes should be sought to explain natural phenomenon. Darwin had many opportunities to witness these forces, for example earthquakes and volcanoes, whilst on the Beagle and became convinced that Lyell's views were correct. He made several important discoveries regarding the geology of South America, volcanic islands and coral reefs, by using and building upon Lyell's ideas. He also collected and recorded specimens of organisms of all types which formed the basis of the five volume series he edited and superintended after returning home The Zoology of the Voyage of HMS Beagle (1838-43)
Whilst in South America he also unearthed many fossil specimens, which made him wonder why these resembled the present inhabitants of that continent more than Darwin did not find a solution to this during his voyage aboard the Beagle, but a few years later in London whilst writing the books relating to his travels and studying the specimens collected much more closely. Experts in London, such as the ornithologist John Gould, would confirm with him that many of the plants and animals he had collected in the Galapagos were unique, and to be found nowhere else. One example of this were the birds that were later to become known as 'Darwin's Finches'. During the voyage of the Beagle Darwin was to have no idea of the significance of the bird specimens he collected, even though he knew how to preserve them. In fact he was more interested in the geology specimens and left the shooting mostly to his servant. Whilst on Chatham Island he recorded that a Mockingbird was quite similar to one he had seen in Chile, and when finding another on Charles Island, carefully noted where The birds are all about the same size (10-20cm). They are all brownish or black.
Darwin began to ponder on how new species of animals could He thought of the history of life not as a number of independent lineages which was somehow impelled to progress from monads to monkeys. Instead Darwin saw all life as one single genealogical tree, branching and rebranching. Therefore the similarities of different kinds of living things should be expected from their common descent. In September 1838 he read a book by Thomas Malthus called Essay of Principle of Population. In the book Malthus argued that human population growth, unless checked would necessarily outstrip food production. Population growth was geometrical. For example, two children may have four children, each of whom may have four children and those children could also have four children. Therefore in four generations there could be an increase of 2 to 4 to 24 to 96 and so on and so forth. This argument inspired Darwin. He realised that a large amount of living things are always destroyed before they can reproduce. This must be true otherwise every species would breed enough to fill the earth in a few hundred generations. Instead populations keep roughly stable from year to year. The only way for this to happen is for most offspring including seeds, pollen and eggs, do not survive long enough to reproduce. Darwin who was already concentrating on how new varieties of life could be formed, realised that whatever made a difference between what survived and what didn't was the key. He came to call this 'natural selection' because it was analogous to breeders choosing which individuals to breed from and therefore changing a breed over time. He wrote in his autobiography in 1876, ''In October 1838, that is, fifteen months after Charles married his cousin Emma Wedgewood (1808-1896) in 1839. They moved from London to the suburbs in 1842, to Down House in the London Borough of Bromley.
The many innovative books Charles wrote gave him a great reputation as a geologist, zoologist and scientific traveller. He conducted breeding experiments with plants and animals and read widely for many years to substantiate his theory of evolution. He wrote two essays outlining his theory, the first in 1842 and the second, giving more information therefore expanding on the subject greatly in 1844. After spending eight years on the subject of Barnacles, which was published 1851-4 he turned his focus to writing to explain species. He was more than halfway through what he called 'a great work on the subject' when he received a letter from an English naturalist and collector, Alfred Russell Wallace (1823-1913). In an essay enclosed Wallace described the ideas he had 'On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely From the Original Type'. Darwin understandably was struck by the similarity. He sent this letter onto Lyell, and they decided along with Darwin's friend J D Hooker, to avoid competition for priority and to publicise abstracts by both men Charles was urged by his friends to publish an extract of his work-in-progress on natural selection. It was this extract that was to become one of the most famous books ever written: On the Origin of Species (1859).
In the Origin of Species, he first tried to convince that organisms were malleable and not fixed natural kinds. He showed that various animals and plants were highly variable and to have changed so much as to be classed as different species if not already familiar. He then went on the prove that the existence of organisms was dependent on factors that tended to hold their numbers in check. Climate, food, available spaces, Darwin's theory of evolution has three main requirements or elements: variation, selection and heredity. No one denied that that all individual life forms were unique, and the differences in these could make a difference in which organisms lived to reproduce and which didn't, then, if these same differences could be inherited by the offspring, then subsequent generations would be descended from those lucky enough to survive. The last paragraph of the Origin of Species eloquently sums up Darwin's vision: It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependant on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the direct or indirect action of the external conditions of life, and use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms, Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been,
Readers today have often misunderstood the meaning of the title of his book. Reactions to Darwin's theories were profound and varied and to some extent still ongoing. Most disturbing of all were the implications for the uniqueness of the human man. Darwin refrained from discussing the derivation of any one species, including man. A lot of people who read the book could only think about what this view Darwin later took up the subject in his book The Descent of Man (1871) and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872). In both these brilliantly original works he shows that there is no difference of 'kind' between man and other animals only of 'degree'. Rather than an unbridgeable gulf, he showed that there is a graduation of change between all organic forms continuously and cumulatively over a Charles Darwin's numerous theories and discoveries are far too numerous to list in this article. It is only by reading his books that can one gain the most accurate sense of his great achievements. His final book, The formation of vegetable mould through the actions of worms (1881), was published the year before his death. There is a myth about Charles Darwin that still circulates today - that he repented evolutionism or converted to Christianity on his deathbed. These stories are usually told by those people who would have like them to be true, but they are not. There are no mysteries surrounding Darwin's death as his relatives that were present wrote detailed notes of his final hours. Charles Darwin was a kind, pleasant man, with a good humour. He was unassuming and extremely modest. He suffered from ill health for most of his life, and because of this led a life kept to a strict daily routine. Any deviation from this seemed to cause bouts of illness. He found in his wife that her presence transformed his life into one of 'quiet and content gladness'. His son Francis wrote: No one indeed, except my mother, knows the full extent of suffering he endured, or the full amount of his wonderful patience. For all the latter years of his life she never left him for a night; and her days were so planned that all his resting hours might be shared with her. She shielded him from every avoidable annoyance, and omitted nothing that might save him trouble, or prevent him from becoming overtired, or that might alleviate the many discomforts of his ill-health'. Despite his ill-health Darwin remained driven and focused on understanding nature and remaining part of the elite scientific world he both respected and admired. Charles Darwin died in April 1882 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
After his death Darwin's private papers were mostly preserved and many of them were later deposited in Cambridge University Library. In 1909 more than four hundred scientists and dignitaries from over 167 countries gathered at Cambridge for two reasons. The first was to celebrate the centenary of his birth and also the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species. This event was an enormous success. There had never before been such a celebration held for one individual scientist. 2009 Bicentenary celebrations In 2009 we are fortunate to be witnessing another unprecedented celebration of this extraordinary man. There are many events being held all around the country to celebrate the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin. In Shrewsbury there are various events taking place including an exhibition, guided walks, even a birthday cake with 200 candles. Down House is to reopen with new displays showing how he developed his groundbreaking theory and also his family life. The Natural History Museum is to hold public talks, tours and gallery performances, and then until 19 April 2009, an exhibition entitled Darwin: Big Idea, Big Exhibition. Billed as the biggest ever exhibition about Darwin at the Natural History Museum, and will include live animals, rare specimens and personal objects.
A new £2 coin has also been minted, and the Royal Mail has issued a
On January 30th the Department for Culture, Media and Sport put forward One can see why these creatures would have fascinated Charles Darwin.
Alfred Russel Wallace
Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) was born in Usk, Monmouthshire. His parents were middle class and of modest means. The family moved to Hertford when he was five years old. He started school in 1828, but by 1835 had been sent to live with his brother John in London, as his father had been swindled out of the family home. In 1837 he then went to live with his brother William in Bedfordshire. By late 1844 he had met another amateur naturalist by the name of Henry Bates, and in 1848 they travelled to the Amazon. For Wallace it was primarily an expedition to find evidence to prove evolution. In 1852 because of ill health he decided to return home. Twenty six days into the journey disaster struck, the ship caught fire. Wallace lost all of his notes, drawings, specimens and even live animals. Not to be put off, he travelled to the Malay Archipelago in 1854 and spent eight years there, collecting almost 110,000 insects, 8050 bird skins, 410 reptile and mammal skins, over a hundred of which were new species unknown to scientists.
In February 1855 Wallace wrote Sarawak Law (whilst in Sarawak, Borneo), which impressed the famous geologist Charles Lyell when he read it, as it was probably the most important paper on evolution written prior to the discovery of natural selection. Lyell then visited Charles Darwin who explained his theory of natural selection for the first time. Lyell urged him to publish his theory lest anyone should beat him to it, probably thinking of Wallace as he did. Darwin took heed of his advice, and started to draft a 'sketch' of his theories, however he abandoned this idea and began instead an extensive book on the subject. In February 1858 Wallace sent a detailed essay along with a covering letter to Charles Darwin on the subject of evolution. In it he asked him to send it on to Charles Lyell if he thought it was sufficiently interesting. Bearing in mind that Wallace had never corresponded with Lyell but who was one of the most respected scientists of that time. Wallace wasn't to know that Darwin had discovered natural selection so many years earlier, and that Darwin was naturally astounded to be reading his essay. Darwin immediately contacted both Lyell and his friend Joseph Hooker for advice. They in turn decided to present work from both Darwin and Wallace before the Linnean Society (without Wallace's permission) The rest is history as it were. In 1870 Wallace was looking for a house in the countryside. From his book 'My Life' he wrote, 'a picturesque old chalk pit which had been disused so long that a number of large elms and a few other trees had grown up in its less precipitous portions. This land was at Grays in Essex. From the fields at the top there was a beautiful view over Erith to the Kent hills and down to the reach at Gravesend, forming a most attractive site for a house'. Wallace proceeded to buy the land and built his house which he named The Dell and moved into it with his family in March 1872. Whilst he lived there he wrote the books On Miracles and Modern Spiritualism and The Geographical Distribution of Animals. He did intend to settle there for the rest of his life and even wrote in a letter to Charles Darwin of his intention. He actually only lived there for four years selling it
During his lifetime Wallace wrote more than 700 articles and 22 books, on a wide variety of different subjects, the best known of these being The Malay Archipelago and Darwinism. He was honoured for the many contributions he made to biology, geography, anthropology and geology. Amongst these were The Founder's Medal By the turn of the century, Wallace was probably Britain's best known He was buried in the local cemetery even though he could have been buried in Westminster Abbey next to Darwin, The cemetery had better views. On the 1st November 1915 a medallion bearing his name was placed
We would like to thank George & Janet
Beccaloni for kind permission Please visit their excellent website
www.wallacefund.info/
for more information
John Edmonstone John Edmonstone (???? - ????) was a black slave probably born in Demarara South Guyana. He was taught taxidermy by Charles Waterton whose father in law, After he was freed he travelled to Glasgow with his master Charles Edmonstone. From Glasgow he moved to 37 Lothian Street in Edinburgh where he taught taxidermy to students from Edinburgh University including Charles Darwin. The accounts of his birthplace in South America is thought to have greatly inspired Darwin to travel to and explore the tropics. The skills he taught to Darwin definitely helped a great deal during his later travels. They also spoke at length about Johns life as a slave and this fuelled Charles Darwin's hatred of slavery which he was always vociferous about.
Charles Waterton
Charles Waterton (1782 - 1865) was born at Walton Hall, Wakefield, Yorkshire. He was born into a Roman Catholic landed gentry family, and remained a devout Catholic for the rest of his life. In 1804 he travelled to British Guiana, to manage his uncle's estates near Georgetown. By 1812 he had decided to explore Guiana, making four journeys between 1812 and 1824, reaching Brasil on foot and barefoot, in the rainy season. He was to later describe the discoveries he made in his book, Waterton's Wanderings in South America. This book inspired the then school boys, Charles was a highly skilled taxidermist who preserved many of the animals he encountered on his travels. However he didn't use the traditional methods of preserving these animals, instead he soaked them in what he called 'sublimate of mercury'.
He was credited with having quite an anarchic sense of humour. A tableau he created which is now sadly lost, depicted reptiles dressed as famous Englishmen and was labelled ''The English Reformation Zoologically Demonstrated''. Whilst he was in Guiana, Waterton taught his skills in taxidermy to John Edmonstone, a slave on his uncles estate.
In the 1820's he returned to Walton Hall and upon his return built a nine foot high fence around three miles of his estate. He turned this into the worlds first wildfowl and nature reserve, which in turn made him one of the worlds first environmentalists. He was also credited with inventing the worlds first bird nesting box. In 1829 he married Anne, who was then 17. He was 47. Sadly she died shortly after the birth of their son Edmund, she was then 18. After her death Charles slept on the floor, with a block of wood for a pillow. Charles Waterton died in 1865 at the age of 83 following a fall on his estate, in which he fractured his ribs and injured his liver. His body is interred near the spot he fell.
Andrea Finch 2009 We would like to thank Andrea Finch for submitting this article to the society. |
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