Anniversary as Darwin sets sail

It was 180 years ago this week that Charles Darwin set out on the start of his epic five-year trip, which would end with him writing his book on evolution, On The Origin of Species.

Twenty-two-year-old Charles Darwin had left The Lion Hotel in haste on Monday, September 5, 1831, by stagecoach to London on his way to join HMS Beagle.

The reason Darwin, pictured below, left the town in such a rush was that a second person had been offered the job as naturalist on the ship, which was due to set sail later that month, and the young Shrewsbury scientist feared he might miss his opportunity.

Darwin had been offered the job a week earlier for what had planned to be a two-year survey of South America and he had accepted it.

However, his father, Robert, supported by Charles’ sisters, refused to let him go saying the trip would get in the way of him becoming a clergyman.

After what must have been a heated family discussion his father relented and said he could go, if he could find a man with common sense who thought it would be a good idea.

Darwin wrote to his Cambridge professor of botany, the Rev John Stevens Henslow, while his father wrote to his brother, Josiah Wedgwood II.

The next afternoon Charles rode over to his uncle’s home at Maer Hall, just over the border in Staffordshire, near Market Drayton and Newcastle-under-Lyme, for the start of the hunting season, where he wanted to put his case to the member of the famous Wedgwood pottery family.

The plan worked. His uncle wrote to Darwin’s father answering all the objections and Robert agreed to support his son financially.

Since the Whitehall Admiralty hadn’t heard from Darwin for a few days, they presumed he had changed his mind and offered the job to someone else.

Darwin hurried off to London on the first available stagecoach to see Captain Robert FitzRoy who asked him if he was still interested in the job, as the other person had turned it down.

Charles again accepted the job, and was told to report to Plymouth in time for the new sailing date of October 10, although the ship didn’t eventually leave until 11am on Tuesday, December 27.

There’s more on Darwin’s trip in Four Centuries at The Lion Hotel, Shrewsbury.

To buy an autographed copy for £6 including postage within the UK email John@jbutterworth.plus.com