Biography of Charles Darwin
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By the end of his life, Darwin was hailed for his scientific contributions and shielded from intense criticism by friends like Huxley. Grant’s discussions of transmutation—the idea that species could change over time—stirred something deep within the young student, though Charles remained cautious, even secretive, about such radical views.
When it became clear that medicine would never hold Charles’s heart, his father sent him to Christ’s College, Cambridge, to study for the clergy.
Darwin published On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection in 1859 with tremendous personal anxiety as to how it would be received.
He was born Charles Robert Darwin on February 12, 1809, in Shrewsbury, Shropshire England. He explored regions in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and remote islands such as the Galápagos.
While he continued his studies in theology at Cambridge, it was his focus on natural history that became his passion.
In 1831, Darwin embarked on a voyage aboard a ship of the British Royal Navy, the HMS Beagle, employed as a naturalist. Robert Darwin's father, Charles' grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, was a doctor and poet who authored Zoonomia; or the Laws of Organic Life, in 1794.
Inspired by accounts of expeditions in South America, Darwin found a place for himself as a naturalist on board the HMS Beagle. When Fitzroy and Darwin returned he had completed a 770 page diary detailing his notes and sketches, but had more questions about evolution that he had left with. Religious leaders attacked it as atheistic, while theologians like Asa Gray sought to reconcile it with divine providence.
John van Wyhe
Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin was born in 1809 in Shrewsbury, England. Even in small things, he saw vast implications.
Death of the Naturalist, Birth of a Legacy
Charles Darwin died on April 19, 1882, at the age of seventy-three. At the time Edinburgh offered the most forward-thinking education in science of any university in Britain.
It continues in every field study, in every genome sequenced, in every student who marvels at the fossil record or watches a bird adapt to a changing environment. Their correspondence reveals a gentle, mutual respect, though Darwin was painfully aware that his views wounded her faith.
They had ten children, seven of whom survived to adulthood.
Over time, his ideas gained acceptance—not because of fashion or force, but because they explained so much so well. Text
For more detailed accounts of Darwin's life on this site see:
The autobiography of Charles Darwin. But for all his natural curiosity, no one—least of all Charles himself—could have predicted the seismic intellectual journey that lay ahead.
Becoming a Naturalist by Accident
At sixteen, Charles began medical studies at the University of Edinburgh, following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather.
The couple also had three sisters older than Charles.
The main purpose of the trip was to survey the coastline of South America and chart its harbors to make better maps of the region. He continued his study and published works on coral reefs, botany, insects and geology, but largely tried to stay out of the public eye and did not confess his theory of evolution to many, fearing it to be akin to confessing a sin.
His burial in the town of Downe was perceived as too low-brow, and with Huxley's persuasion Darwin's body was buried at Westminster Abbey.