Edinburgh University

At the tender age of sixteen, Charles was enrolled at Edinburgh
University by his father to study medicine and follow in the
footsteps of both his grandfather Erasmus Darwin and his father Robert
as a physician. To prepare Charles for Edinburgh, Dr. Robert Darwin had
spent considerable time with Charles the previous summer, taking him on
visits to his patients at the hospital and teaching him the skills he
used as a physician. Charles was enthusiastic about what he was
learning and Dr. Darwin concluded that Charles would make a very fine
physician. At that
time, Edinburgh had gained an equal footing with Leiden in Holland
(the medical school where Robert received most of his training) and
Padua in Italy as an eminent medical school. In addition, during the mid-1700s Edinburgh was the center of the Scottish enlightenment with David
Hume as a resident philosopher. But Charles could
stand neither the sight of blood nor the practice of performing amputations
without an anesthetic and refused to complete his studies. In general,
he found the classes required for medical practice uninteresting,
although he did enjoy a return to his early interest in chemistry,
which was taught by Professor Thomas Hope. Charles and his older
brother Erasmus had shared in a ‘lab’ they had put together in the
family garden tool shed at The Mount.
While at Edinburgh in 1826 and early 1827,
Charles forged an important friendship with Professor Robert Grant who
taught zoology, and they would take walks along the Firth of Forth
collecting specimens. Grant taught him to do dissections and to make
detailed observations under a microscope. It was also from Grant that
he learned about the French naturalist Lamarck and his ideas about
transmutation. Interestingly, Erasmus Darwin, Charles’s grandfather,
and Jean Baptiste Lamarck were contemporaries, and whereas Erasmus was
referred to as “the English Lamarck”, Lamarck was referred to as“the
Parisian Darwin”. Both men were avid proponents of the principle of transmutation,
a term later replaced by evolution. Grant’s interest in both
Lamarck and particularly in the work of Erasmus Darwin spurred Charles’
interest in the writings of both men. And it was at this time that Darwin
read Lamarck’s Systeme des Animaux sans Vertebras and
studied his grandfather’s extensive work entitled Zoonomia.
He thoroughly acquainted himself with their views on the
principles of transmutation, or evolution, the subject that would
eventually consume his interest for most of his life.
While at Edinburgh Charles appeared to learn
more from his informal activities than he learned in the classroom. He
pursued his interest in natural history by frequent visits to the
museum where Mr. William MacGillivary was the curator. They also
became friends, and MacGillivary taught Darwin about the anatomy of
animals, and some botany, and how to take notes on the observations
he made. It was through another friend, John Edmonstone, that
Darwin learned the art of taxidermy. Edmonstone was a freed slave from Guyana,
and while they worked they talked about the rain forests of South
America that inspired Darwin and influenced his decision to go around
the world on the Beagle.
On trips home to Shrewsbury while he was a
student at Edinburgh, Darwin made extended forays into northern Wales
where he used a book by Gilbert White, entitled The Natural History of Selborne as a guide to developing an interest in the beauty of birds
and insects. It was at this point in his life that Darwin began to keep
his own field notebook and to record detailed observations on the
subjects of his studies.
Charles Darwin was becoming a
self-trained naturalist with a keen interest in basic science even
though he was only seventeen or eighteen years of age. It was no
surprise when he started to attend the
Plinian Society, a science club that emphasized studies of the natural world instead of
the idea of supernaturalism. Darwin's very first talk, on the marine biology of the Firth of
Forth, was given to this group on March 27, 1827
Even though his father did not appreciate it,
his son was developing the skills he would need for his lifelong work,
largely on his own, outside the confinement of the classrooms at
Edinburgh. Darwin was destined to become the most respected and remembered
naturalist of the 19th Century.
Sources, Further reading and Websites:
Charles Darwin Voyaging, by Janet Broune
Baruch College http://darwin.baruch.cuny.edu/biography/
Excerpts from Erasmus Darwin’s Zoonomia,
or the Laws of Organic Life
Cambridge University


At age 19 Charles enrolled at Christ’s
College, Cambridge, intending to become a clergyman in the Anglican
Church (fig.). His disappointed father saw this as a necessity because
Charles had been unwilling to complete his studies at Edinburgh and
enter the traditional family profession as a physician. Darwin arrived at
Cambridge in January 1828. To go to either Cambridge or Oxford was to
enter the world of the Victorian gentlemen and to hobnob with the elite
and ruling classes of England. Both the Darwins and the Wedgwoods
were prominent country gentlemen, and Charles found Cambridge rather
suited his taste. His father provided him with a very adequate
allowance of 200 pounds a year. Charles soon felt at home at
Cambridge where he became reacquainted with past friends from both
Reverend Case’s school as well as from Dr. Butler’s school in
Shrewsbury. Of even more significance, however, he found a cousin there
by the name of William Darwin Fox who would become a close, life-long
friend. As young men they were much the same in temperament and enjoyed each other’s company. Later in life they would comfort each
other in times of severe tragedy, particularly when they had members of
their immediate family die. Hensleigh Wedgewood, another cousin from the Wedgwood side of
the family and a good friend of his brother Erasmus (Ras) was also at Christ’s College when Charles arrived, and they
too would maintain a lifelong friendship.
Fox introduced Charles to beetles, and
the two of them spent many hours in pursuit of rare specimens --
entomology united them! In Charles’s own words “ no pursuit was
followed with nearly so much eagerness or gave me more pleasure as
collecting beetles.” At this time he also subscribed to a natural
history periodical on entomology published by James Stephens. Darwin
established contact with Stephens and sent him a number of beetles and
a moth; as a result, his name appeared in the publication. He took
pleasure in telling Fox that “you will see my name in Stephen’s last
number.” The challenge of catching rare beetles was particularly
rewarding and Darwin recalls this interesting experience: “one day on
tearing off some old bark, I saw two rare beetles and seized one in
each hand; then I saw a third and new kind, which I could not bear to
lose, so that I popped the one I held in my right hand into my mouth.
Alas it ejected some acrid fluid, which burnt my tongue so that I was
forced to spit the beetle out, which was lost as well as the third
one.” There is no doubt that he was a natural born entomologist as he
quipped “it is quite absurd how interested I am getting to be about the
science.”
Unlike the more secular universities of Edinburgh
or University College London (known as the Godless College), Oxford and
Cambridge were mainly theological training schools for the Anglican
Church and had been an integral part of the church since Henry
VIII. Darwin accepted the idea of becoming a member of the clergy, and
he envisioned himself in a parish church with plenty of time to
participate in activities involving his interest in natural history. It
is clear that Charles’s enthusiasm for the natural sciences, first
exhibited while he was in Edinburgh, became even more central to his
interests at Cambridge. He and his close friend Fox read William
Paley’s book on Natural Theology which suggested that the way
of understanding the natural world was to see it as evidence of God’s
creative powers. However, in 1830, Charles read John Hershel’s Preliminary
Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy that gave an
expansive view of the future of scientific understanding, and as a
result he developed a burning desire to add his own contribution to the “noble structure of natural sciences.”
Professor John Stevens Henslow, from whom
Charles took a course in botany, befriended him, as Henslow recognized
Darwin’s promise as a naturalist. He also encouraged Charles to take a
course in geology as he thought it would be valuable to his future
studies. Charles had already developed an interest in geology, but
Professor Adam Sedgwick’s lectures on the subject gave him a greatly
expanded appreciation for the time-line that was available for the
development of biological systems.
After Charles completed his degree at Cambridge
in 1831, he and Adam Sedgwick spent some time working on a geological
map and studying rock formations in northern Wales. When they returned
to Shrewsbury two letters were waiting for Charles, one was from
Professor Henslow and the other from George Peacock who was responsible
for nominating naturalists for navy ships making surveys. Henslow had
recommended Darwin to Peacock and so Darwin was offered the post of
unpaid naturalist to go on a trip around the world on the HMS Beagle.
All this was a complete surprise to Charles who did not consider
himself qualified as a naturalist but was eager to accept. Robert
Darwin thought it was a wild scheme, and although not absolutely forbidding
Charles from going said “if you can find any man of common sense
who advises you to go, I will give my consent.” Reluctantly Charles
wrote to Henslow saying that he could not go.
Charles immediately left to go on a hunting trip
with his uncle Josiah Wedgwood who did not agree with Charles’s father
and thought that the offer to go on the Beagle was too important to
turn down. Josiah returned with Charles to Shrewsbury and convinced
Robert, who had always regarded Josiah as a man of common sense, that
it would be a great experience for Charles. After a discussion among
the three of them Robert gave his consent for Charles to go on the
voyage that would eventually change his life. Charles, in a great state
of excitement, wrote a letter to Henslow canceling his earlier letter
of refusal.
The following morning Charles took a coach to
Cambridge to see Henslow where bad news awaited. Darwin was told that
an offer for the position on the Beagle had been made to a Mr. Chester. But all was not lost as the
captain of the Beagle, Robert Fitzroy, had made it clear that he would
only take someone whom he liked personally, as they would be sharing a
cabin that was very small. As it turned out, after two meetings Fitzroy
chose Charles. On learning that he had been selected Charles wrote a
very prescient letter to Fitzroy saying that the day of the Beagle’s
departure would be glorious."My second life will begin and it shall be
as a birthday for the rest of my life.”
Sources and Further Reading:
Charles Darwin Voyaging, by Janet Browne
Baruch College: http://darwin.baruch.cuny.edu/biography/