Charles Dawin
1809 - 1882
Charles Robert Darwin was born on the 12th of February 1809 (the same day as Abraham Lincoln), in Shrewsbury, England.
As a young boy he was very interested in nature and when not reading nature books he was out hunting, fishing or collecting insects. He wanted to become a naturalist but his father believed there was no future for him in this field and sent him to medicine school at Edinburgh University at 16 years of age to follow in his family’s footsteps of medical science.
But Darwin left as he found the sight of operations abhorrent (these were the days before anaesthetic) and so began to study to become a clergyman at Cambridge University; he finished with a BA degree.
It was at this juncture he was asked by Captain Robert Fitzroy from the ship 'HMS Beagle' to join his crew on a voyage around the world. Captain Fitzroy wanted someone to accompany him who had knowledge of nature and with a sound religious background. The voyage was intended to aide Captain Fitzroy to help provide geological evidence to disprove the growing ideas of evolution.
So at 22, Darwin set sail for the 40,000 mile journey. Initially he believed in the religious claims that God created the world and animals herein, but he was also a great naturalist and so started this journey with an open mind.
From 1831 - 1836 he travelled to the South American coast, then on to Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, round Australia before stopping off at the Galapagos islands in the Pacific Ocean where he carried out most of his exciting studies.
He made expeditions hundreds of miles inland and risked his life collecting, researching and observing, animals, plants and the local geology. When Darwin reached the Galapagos Islands he stumbled upon one of the most natural laboratories in the world. He was fascinated by the variety of life, from the giant Galapagos tortoises and their varying sizes and shapes to the several kinds of Finches inhabiting the numerous islands, which he studied and did not appreciate their significance until returning home to England.
Back home he realised that the Galapagos animals resembled the animals from the South American mainland even though the Galapagos animals are found nowhere else on earth. He surmised that the Galapagos Islands had been colonised by animals and plants which originally had been native to South America. Upon inhabitating the Galapagos Islands the animals then diversified on the separate islands. This sparked off the 23 year study, where he reassessed his findings and eventually came up with his theory of evolution.
On the 24th of November 1859 Darwin released his book on the theory of evolution entitled "The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection". The idea of natural selection being that a population can change over generations if individuals, who have certain heritable traits, leave more offspring than other individuals. The inherited trait is usually something that helps the animal’s ability to survive in its environment better than other individuals without this inherited trait.
But why then was Darwin’s work so revolutionary?
Owing to the vast amounts of evidence that he accumulated, he found the most plausible method to explain how animals have changed over time was through natural selection and not by creation.
Darwin died at the age of 74 at the family home in Downe, Kent in 1882 and had ten children during that time. He lived with people both condemning his theories and others who believed and accepted his work as accurate. He is regarded in history as one of the most respected men in science and his theory of natural selection helped us to understand and improve modern studies of evolution, natural selection and history, which are still being used today.
One of Darwin’s dying wishes was to be buried near his family home at St. Mary’s Churchyard in Kent alongside several of his children who did not survive out of childhood.
William Spottiswoode, the President of the Royal Society believed that Darwin’s final resting place should be more prestigious.
Charles Robert Darwin was laid to rest alongside Sir John Herschel and Sir Isaac Newton in Westminster Abbey.
Researched and written by Stuart Short.