Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire.
He was the son of Robert Waring Darwin and his wife Susannah, and the grandson of the scientist Erasmus Darwin and the potter Josiah Wedgwood. His mother died when he was eight years old, and he was brought up by his sister. He was taught classics at Shrewsbury and was then sent to Edinburgh to study medicine, which he hated. A final attempt at educating him was made by sending him to Christ’s College, Cambridge, to study theology in 1827. During that period, he loved to collect plants, insects, and geological specimens, guided by his cousin William Darwin Fox, an entomologist. His scientific inclinations were encouraged by his botany professor, John Stevens Henslow, who was instrumental in securing a place for Darwin as a naturalist on the surveying expedition of HMS Beagle to Patagonia from 1831-1836.
Under Captain Robert Fitzroy, he visited Tenerife, the Cape Verde Islands, Brazil, Montevideo, Tierra del Fuego, Buenos Aires, Valparaiso, Chile, the Galapagos, Tahiti, New Zealand, and Tasmania. In the Keeling Islands, he devised his theory of coral reefs. During this five-year expedition, he obtained intimate knowledge of the fauna, flora, and geology of many lands, which equipped him for his later investigations. By 1846, he had published several works on the geological and zoological discoveries of his voyage – works that placed him at once in the front rank of scientists.
He developed a friendship with Sir Charles Lyell, became secretary of the Geological Society (1838-41), and married his cousin Emma Wedgewood (1808-96) in 1839. From 1842, he lived at Down House, Downe, Kent, as a country gentleman surrounded by his gardens, conservatories, pigeons, and fowls. The practical knowledge he gained there, especially in variation and interbreeding, proved invaluable. Private means enabled him to devote himself to science, despite continuous ill-health. It was not realized until after his death that he had suffered from Chagas’s disease, which he had contracted from an insect bite while in South America.
At Down House, he addressed himself to the great work of his life: the problem of the origin of species. After five years of collecting evidence, he began to speculate on the subject. In 1842, he drew up his observations in some short.
