In no rush to take holy orders, in 1831 Darwin accepted an offer to embark on a five-year voyage aboard HMS Beagle.ĭarwin returned to England in 1836. He then went to Cambridge University to study theology. Watching this procedure left Darwin so traumatised that he gave up his studies without completing the course. Surgeries at the time would have been carried out without the use of anaesthetic or antiseptics, and fatalities were common. In 1825 Darwin enrolled in medical school at the University of Edinburgh, where he witnessed surgery on a child. Growing up he was an avid reader of nature books and devoted his spare time to exploring the fields and woodlands around his home, collecting plants and insects. Young Charles Darwinīorn in 1809 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, Darwin was fascinated by the natural world from a young age. Darwin died in 1882 and is buried in Westminster Abbey.He is celebrated as one the greatest British scientists who ever lived, but in his time his radical theories brought him into conflict with members of the Church of England. Darwin never forgot Wallace's contributions to the natural selection theory. Darwin himself was uncomfortable with all the controversy and avoided it whenever possible.ĭarwin wrote and published books and papers on other subjects relating to natural history, The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication (1868), The Descent of Man (1871). The book had a profound impact on the social, religious, political and scientific thinking of the general public and the scientific community. It was Darwin's book however, On the Origin of Species, published in 1859, which garnered all the attention and the controversy. In the end both Darwin and Wallace presented the theory to the Linnean Society.
Darwin recognized the similarity of his work to Wallace's, and actually offered to burn his own work to avoid being thought of as an idea stealer. In 1857, a young biologist, Alfred Russel Wallace, sent Darwin a letter outlining the "theory of evolution through natural selection." Wallace wanted Darwin's opinion and possible endorsement for presentation of the theory to the Linnean Society of naturalists. He spent time sorting and cataloging his collection of material, and publishing popular accounts of his voyage on the Beagle. On his return to England in 1836, Darwin did not immediately publish his theory on evolution. Darwin concluded that the adaptations and changes in many of the species he saw, especially the finches and tortoises on the Galapagos Islands, came about through a process of natural selection. In this he was influenced by what he knew of geology and the stratification of rock layers. Based on what he saw, Darwin believed that life evolved, and could be traced through fossils and living examples. He collected, sketched and made notes of fossils, and a wide assortment of living organisms.
The voyage was an eye-opening experience for Darwin. During the next five years, the Beagle toured the South American coasts, the Galapagos Islands, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa. In 1831, Darwin was invited by Captain Fitz-Roy to be the science officer on the H.M.S. Eventually, his father withdrew him from Edinburgh and sent him to Cambridge to study divinity. Darwin was more interested in his zoology and geology classes. At 16, Darwin was sent to Edinburgh University to study medicine.
Charles Darwin's father was also a physician, and wanted his son to carry on the family tradition. Charles Darwin's grandfather was the naturalist, philosopher and doctor Erasmus Darwin, who had published a four volume treatise containing his own views on the development of the species. Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, England.