Darwin’s evolution
Under the microscope... John Vincent discovers that Charles Darwin was dismissed as a disgrace by his father.
He is celebrated as one of the greatest ever British scientists, whose radical ideas transformed the way we understand the natural world. But the young Charles Darwin (1809-1882) proved a major disappointment to his father Robert, a successful physician. He wanted his son, who hadn’t shone at school, to follow him into a career in medicine. Charles tried to oblige but hated his Edinburgh University course and quit within two years.
Then he started a degree at Cambridge with a view to a career in the church. But that didn’t interest him either and he deserted that course too, prompting a frustrated Dr Darwin to tell his fifth child: “You care for nothing. You will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family.”
Harsh words indeed... but Darwin
Jnr, grandson of pottery manufacturer Josiah Wedgwood, proved him wrong,
becoming the century’s most influential naturalist and biologist. His work on the Beagle’s five-year round-the-world voyage in the early 1830s, followed by his groundbreaking but controversial theory of evolution by natural selection and the publication of On the Origin of Species (1859) ensured his name is immortalised in terms still used today, Darwinism and the Darwinian evolutionary theory.
Now Darwin’s earliest microscope – and the first ever to be offered at auction – has fetched a record £598,500 at Christie’s in London after being passed down through the family for nearly 200 years. It was designed by Charles Gould for the London firm Cary, specialists in scientific instruments, in about 1826.
Which particular Darwin bought it – and how much it cost – isn’t recorded. One can safely assume it wasn’t cheap so perhaps Darwin Snr, relieved that his son had found an interest at last, bought it for
him. Or perhaps he just lent the money to Charles, who rushed off to the Strand to buy it himself.
Despite his growing fame, Charles Darwin shunned the limelight, preferring to spend almost all his time with wife Emma and, eventually, 10 children at their home in the Kent village of Downe.
In keeping with a man so occupied by the orderly classification of species, Darwin’s days followed a strict order: brisk walk, breakfast, two hours’ work, another walk (this time with his dog), family lunch at 1pm, newspapers and correspondence until 3, siesta, then work again until family supper at 7.30. Before bed he would play billiards with his children or backgammon with Emma.
Strange to tell but Darwin’s career nearly didn’t get off the ground. The eccentric commander of the Beagle, Robert Fitzroy (1805-1865), came close to rejecting his services as naturalist, apparently because he didn’t like the shape of his nose (it was too bulbous, he thought). The path of history is so often dictated by the indiscriminate whims of just one person...