Early Life
Born in Shrewsbury on the 12th of February 1809, Darwin was a resident of the town until the age of 27. From Shrewsbury he attended university at Edinburgh and Cambridge and embarked on the trip of a lifetime before moving south to London and finally settling at Down House in Kent.
It was here in Shrewsbury that nature and nurture combined to produce the ideal candidate for the position of Naturalist on the Voyage of the Beagle.
Charles Darwin had two remarkable grandfathers, Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood. Both were members of the Lunar Men. As well as developing groundbreaking theories and practical inventions, they conversed with the likes of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.
Darwin’s father Robert was a successful and much respected doctor who tended to rich and poor alike. Robert built the family home at The Mount in 1798 and the family moved in two years later. The Darwin’s were keen gardeners and kept detailed garden diaries, which taught young Charles the value of observing and recording.
But Darwin was also naturally inquisitive and loved to roam around the fields and along the riverbanks collecting bugs and beetles. It is clear from his own writings that by the age of nine, the natural world had captivated him. So much so that Dr Butler, headmaster of Shrewsbury School, which he attended in that year, had little hope of filling Darwin’s head with Latin or Greek.
The influence of his grandfather Erasmus Darwin, his father Robert and the liberal views of the Unitarian Church that Darwin attended with his mother Susannah, was a powerful combination. Along with his innate curiosity it formed the character that went on to produce groundbreaking theories on the nature of Nature and Man’s place within it. In terms of the evolution of Charles Darwin from schoolboy bug hunter to world class naturalist, it is here in Shrewsbury that the Mind was Made.