Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin. At the age of 51, Charles Darwin had
just published On the Origin of Species.
Born
12 February 1809(1809-02-12)
Mount House, Shrewsbury, Shropshire,
England
Died
19 April 1882 (aged 73)
Down House, Downe, Kent, England
Residence
England
Nationality
British
Fields
Naturalist
Institutions
Royal Geographical Society
Alma
mater
University of Edinburgh
University of Cambridge
Academic
advisors
John Stevens Henslow
Adam Sedgwick
Known for
The Voyage of the Beagle
On The Origin of Species
Natural selection
Influences
Charles Lyell
Joseph Dalton Hooker
Influenced
Thomas Henry Huxley
George John Romanes
Notable
awards
Royal Medal (1853)
Wollaston Medal (1859)
Copley Medal (1864)
Religious
stance
Church of England, though Unitarian family
background, Agnostic after 1851.
Signature
Notes
He was a grandson of Erasmus Darwin and a grandson of
Josiah Wedgwood, and married his cousin Emma
Wedgwood.
Charles Robert Darwin FRS (12 February 1809 – 19 April
1882) was an English naturalist[I] who realised and
presented compelling evidence that all species of life
have evolved over time from common ancestors,
through the process he called natural selection.[1] The
fact that evolution occurs became accepted by the sci-
entific community and much of the general public in his
lifetime, while his theory of natural selection came to be
widely seen as the primary explanation of the process of
evolution in the 1930s,[2] and now forms the basis of
modern evolutionary theory. In modified form, Darwin’s
scientific discovery is the unifying theory of the life sci-
ences, providing logical explanation for the diversity of
life.[3]
At Edinburgh University Darwin neglected medical
studies to investigate marine invertebrates, then the
University of Cambridge encouraged a passion for natur-
al science.[4] His five-year voyage on HMS Beagle estab-
lished him as an eminent geologist whose observations
and theories supported Charles Lyell’s uniformitarian
ideas, and publication of his journal of the v