Editor’s note: Feb. 12 is Charles Darwin’s birthday, and on this day the CVPost begins a six-part series on the life of the British naturalist whose theory of evolution transformed scientific views of the natural world. The series is written by Wil Taylor, chair of the biology department at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. As a paleontologist and educator, Taylor has a lifelong passion for the study of evolution. His study has taken him, among other places, to the Galapagos Islands and Darwin’s country estate at Downe, England.
By Wil Taylor
For the CVPost
Charles Robert Darwin was born Feb. 12, 1809, the same day as Abraham Lincoln. Both of these men would go on to change history, but each in his own way. (For a fascinating comparison between the two men, see
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-lincoln-and-darwin-shaped-the-modern-world-45447280/?no-ist).
Darwin was raised in a well-to-do household – his maternal grandfather founded the Wedgwood Pottery Company – and this single historical fact of social class would strongly influence the opportunities available to him.
His father, Robert, did not want his son to be a spoiled rich boy his whole life, so he chose a profession for him: Darwin would follow in his father’s footsteps and become a physician.
Unfortunately, the medical school lectures bored Darwin senseless, and the operations in those days before the discovery of anesthesia were ghastly affairs. Can you imagine witnessing, performing, even surviving being cut open while you were fully conscious?
Darwin skipped out of these required surgeries and spent much of his time engaged in a fad of the day that was sweeping England.
Shakespeare? No. Gardening? Nope.
It was, of course, beetle collecting. Remember, these were the days long before the Internet, and beetle collecting engaged Darwin’s boundless curiosity about the natural world.
After Darwin washed out of medical school, his father moved on to Plan B, which was that his son would become a country parson.
Once moved to Cambridge, Darwin continued his leisure activities, but still managed to finish tenth in his class out of 178 candidates. Then, he learned of an exploratory scientific journey that was being planned to sail around the world on the HMS Beagle.
Darwin had devoured Alexander von Humboldt’s account of the first European encounter with the Orinoco and Amazon Rivers of South America, which took place before he was born, and he longed for such adventures. But, his father flatly refused, considering it a waste of time.
His father did, however, tell Darwin that if he could find “one man of good sense” to speak in favor of this journey on the Beagle, he might reconsider. To the surprise of both father and son, that man turned out to be Darwin’s uncle, his father’s brother-in-law, Josiah Wedgwood II, son of the pottery magnate.
Wedgwood convinced Darwin’s father that exploring the “Book of Nature” – widely considered to tell a story of creation parallel to that revealed in Christian scripture – was a worthy pursuit for a future clergyman.
Darwin’s father changed his mind and even provided monetary support for his son’s journey on the Beagle.
With funding secure and solid scientific recommendations through his contacts in Cambridge, all that was required was to find Darwin an official position on the crew. Carrying extra passengers who had no assigned duties was a practice that was frowned upon.
Robert FitzRoy, the aggressively ambitious captain of the Beagle, already had someone to serve in the official post of ship’s naturalist. That was Robert McKormick, who also served as the ship’s surgeon.
Then why was Darwin on board?
FitzRoy wanted his ship to be as well supplied as possible with both equipment and expertise. He also was a cautious, possibly even frightened man.
The previous captain of the Beagle had gone mad and shot himself during the third winter of a previous voyage. And FitzRoy’s uncle, Viscount Castlereagh, had himself slit his own throat.
FitzRoy’s fear was of the loneliness inherent in the five-year journey of a ship’s captain – as well as his own family disposition toward suicidal tendencies.
The captain of a Victorian man-of-war was a total autocrat who could have no unofficial contact with the crew whatsoever. The reasons dealt with both authority and class. But an extra passenger – a guest essentially – was different, as long as he could get past the class issue.
Darwin was not of the aristocracy, but his family was wealthy and he was a gentleman. So he dined alone with the captain throughout the five-year journey.
Darwin and FitzRoy were polar opposites politically, so Darwin had to bite his tongue throughout those meals. FitzRoy also was a deeply religious man whose ideas may well have done much to change Darwin’s ideas about religion.
Despite these differences between them, Darwin and FitzRoy would collaborate on Darwin’s first published work.
As you will read in the next part of this series, the book’s subject and conclusions were quite unexpected.
Next Week: Part II – Voyage of the Beagle (1831-1835)