Charles Darwin was born on February 9^th (or 12^th) 1809 in Shrewsbury. His father was Robert, a physician, son of Erasmus a famous 18^th Century naturalist. His mother was Susannah, daughter of Josiah Wedgewood.

Erasmus and Josiah became friends when they were both members of the Lunar society in Birmingham, a club which met at new moon every month to discuss technology, science commerce etc. Other members include Mathew Boulton and James Watt.

Charles went to school in Shrewsbury in 1818. He did very badly, spending most of his time collecting minerals, insects and birds eggs.

In 1825 Charles was sent to Edinburgh to study medicine. He did badly again, continuing with his collections. His friends at the time included a black taxidermist who taught him how to stuff birds, and zoologist Robert Grant who introduced him to Lamarcks theory of Evolution. While he was Edinburgh, Charles joined the Plinian Society, a club that read Natural History papers. One of these, about materialism, was struck from the society’s journal for blasphemy.

In the 1820’s, doing badly at medical school, Charles, still a Christian, decided to become a country clergyman. At the end of 1827 he joined Christs college, Cambridge, but he soon went back to hunting, shooting and gambling. He made several friends including clergyman/botanist John Stevens Henslow, a creationist and Adam Sedgwick, a geologist who awakened Darwins interest in the formation of the Earth. Two books Darwin read at the time were Alexander Humboldts "Personal narrative", which gave Charles a wanderlust and John Herschels "Introduction t the study of natural philosophy" which showed the importance of rigorous scientific thought.

Sedgwick took Darwin on a geology trip to North Wales, confirming in him a lifelong interest in layers and strata. Less than a year later, volume one of Lyell’s "Principles of geology" was published. This converted Darwin from catastrophism to uniformitarnism.

In August he received an invitation to sail on the 90 ft, 24 ft beam, 10 gun 235 ton sloop brig, the Beagle. He was wanted more as a companion to the captain than as a collector. Even though his father was opposed to the idea (these objections being overcome by Josiah Wedgewood) he went for the interview on 5^th September.

The Beagle set sail on 10^th December, on a five year voyage to survey ocean currents/depths and coastal waters. Darwin filled the boat with his collections and made a study of the geology of the areas he visited. His companion, Captain Robert Fitzroy, was an evangelical christian who agreed with the continuance of slavery, so there were a few heated discussions, which Darwin didn’t like, always avoiding controvesy if possible throughout his life. On the 26^th October 1832 he received volume two of Lyells textbook which attacked Lamarckism.

Darwin returned and became famous for his work. He prepared and published many books including a study of the geology he had encountered, for which he was elected to the secretaryship of The Geological Society in 1838, through which he became friends with Lyell. His other friends of that time include J D Hooker and T H Huxley.

He proposed to his cousin, Emma Wedgewood, on November 11^th 1838 and they married on January 29^th 1839. They lived at 12 Upper Gower St, London. Darwin had started work on the transmutation of species a year earlier, in July 1837.

In 1842 he wrote a 35 page outline of his theory, and two years later a 250 page essay, which he asked to be published if he died.

Ill health made him move to Down House, Sevenoaks, Kent, where he stayed for the rest of his life. He didn’t publish his ideas for 15 years in 1859, and that was due to a letter received on June 18^th 1858 from Alfred Russell Wallace who had had the same ideas as Darwin. They produced a joint paper which was published on 1^st July 1958 in the Journal of the Linnaen Society "On the tendency of species to form varieties; and on the perpetuation of varieties and species by natural selection".

His book "The Origin of the Species" was published in 1859 and was a great success, becoming a best seller.

Darwin, disliking controvesy and with ill health spent little time defending his theory, although he did work on it, and also published "The descent of man" about our origin as descendants of ape like creatures. The man who publicly defended Darwins ideas was T H Huxley, who became known as Darwins Bulldog.

Darwin died on 19^th April 1882.

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