Charles Darwin

Every so often in my travels there emerges a trend or theme which ties multiple trips together. I love it when this happens because I get a larger understanding of whatever it is that I'm traveling to see (remember: traveling = learning for me). Sometimes it's intentional; other times it's just a matter of luck or coincidence. For example, over the past three years, I've visited Roman ruins in Barcelona, the north of England, Herculaneum and, of course, Rome itself. These trips haven't been part of some larger plan to see ancient Rome's remains; we've just happened to encounter these things in a bunch of different places around Europe.

In 2015, the trend of the year was slavery. Great theme, I know. I used my trip to Victoria Falls on the Zimbabwe - Zambia border to learn about David Livingstone, a man who I knew as an explorer without realizing he was actually a missionary and fierce advocate for the end of British participation in the east African slave trade. The base of his statue at Victoria Falls features the word "liberator" in very large letters. A couple of months later, I visited Andersonville National Historic Site, an out of the way field in rural Georgia which was the site of the notorious Civil War prison Camp Sumter. And you can't learn about the Civil War without thinking about slavery.

If there's a trend this year, it might be Charles Darwin.

Darwin, of course, is the English naturalist generally credited with developing the theory of the evolution of species based on natural selection or genetic alteration. His groundbreaking ideas on species'  adaptation to survive were published in his 1859 book On The Origin Of Species, and chaos and accusations of heresy ensued from there. If this is all news to you, perhaps you've seen the Darwin fake-Jesus-fish-with-feet on the backs of cars driving around your hometown and that context rings a bell. Somehow the same debate about evolution vs. creationism is still going on 160 plus years later. I thought we were over that. Oh well...

If there is a place in the world Darwin is perhaps most instantly associated with, it is the Galapagos Islands, a volcanic archipelago about 500 or so miles off the coast of Ecuador. Darwin visited the islands to make natural and geological observations as part of a circumnavigation of the globe aboard the H.M.S. Beagle in 1835. His observations there, particularly of finches, informed the beginnings of thoughts in his head that ultimately led to his publishing his theory of evolution. 

Next month, I'll be in the Galapagos Islands on my first ever trip to South America. Exciting stuff. But before flying south for a week to see the islands that inspired Darwin more than any other place on Earth, we took advantage of a couple of days in London earlier this year to learn more about Darwin by visiting two sites related to his time after the voyage of the Beagle. And yes, we totally know we are doing Darwin's life backwards. Sometimes learning through travel takes you in the wrong sequence.

No pictures inside Westminster Abbey = no picture of Darwin's tomb.

Stop number one? Westminster Abbey in the heart of London. And when I say that we did Darwin's life backwards, I really mean it. This is where his body ended up after he died. I'm not sure that he had anything to do with Westminster Abbey during his life. But like it or not, he's there now. And likely always will be.

Darwin is not the only person buried in Westminster Abbey. Far from it. Everyone from Queen Elizabeth I to Neville Chamberlain to Sir Isaac Newton to Charles Dickens and well over 100 more are laid to rest under the floor there. In fact, there are so many tombs and markers in the place that it's sort of like sensory overload. We visited Westminster Abbey to find tombs besides Darwin's, notably (to finish off last year's slavery theme) David Livingstone and William Wilberforce, and missed them completely. We even walked right over Livingstone's. We also couldn't find Wilberforce's tomb despite some directions; one of the ladies working in the church had to help us. She also noted that nobody ever asks to find Wilberforce since presumably few visitors know who he was. Don't know either? Look it up.

Among the chaos within Westminster Abbey, Darwin's tomb is surprisingly easy to find. It is instantly noticeable and very different from most of the others. It's really really simple and its plain appearance makes it stand out. We found it without any problem at the north side of the nave just west of the quire. It's a plain rectangular slab of white marble with seven words and four numbers carved in it: "Charles Robert Darwin Born 12 February 1809 Died 19 April 1882". Apparently, it reflects very well the way Darwin led his life.

The day after our trip to Westminster Abbey, we ventured a bit south of London on a train to South Bromley, where we boarded the 146 bus and took it to the end of the line to the small village of Downe. A little walk down a very narrow English country road for a bit less than a mile will bring you to Down House, where Darwin lived for the last 40 years of his life. If there's a place that can maximize your understanding of Darwin's life in a very short period of time, I can't imagine any place doing it better than the museum at Down House.

The front of Down House.

Down House is part historical exhibit and part museum and it's just a fantastic learning experience. The lower floor of the house is set up just as it was when Darwin lived there with his wife Emma and their seven children and the upper floor is filled with displays about Darwin's life. While the downstairs and the exterior gardens are impressive in their size and interesting I guess for what they are, the good stuff where we could learn about Darwin's life was upstairs. We spent way more time up their than on the narrated audio tour on the ground floor. If seven children seems like a lot by the way, consider the fact that the Darwins actually had three additional children who died young.

The most immediate impression I got from Down House about Darwin's life was just how much luck there is involved in our time here on Earth. After finishing the equivalent of high school, he was pretty much a bored, distracted rich kid who could just as easily have made nothing out of his life as become what he did. There were so many ways he could have been thrown off track from the difference he made in the world. The best thing for Darwin might have been that he wasn't forced into decision which he regretted because of the money in his family.

Darwin was descended on his father's side from noted English physician, philosopher and abolitionist (good for him here) Erasmus Darwin. On his mother's side of the family, the money came from his Josiah Wedgwood, founder of the famous pottery firm. Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood were grandfathers to Charles, so whatever cash they made and continued to make were very available to their grandchildren. Charles could have done nothing with his life and still made out just fine.

But he didn't. He went to Edinburgh University to study medicine to perhaps follow in his grandfather's footsteps. But that just didn't take. Instead of studying to become a doctor, Darwin spent his time in University hunting, riding, shooting and studying natural history. Maybe it's revisionist history or fake foreshadowing built into the exhibit at Down House, but to me studying natural history doesn't fit with the other interests in Darwin's life. The exhibits at Down House describe Darwin as a collector of pretty much everything but especially beetles which he "collected fanatically." Who does this? When I was a kid I collected candy wrappers and football cards. Darwin's off collecting beetles.

So it probably seems at this point that Darwin is a shoo-in to be some sort of naturalist or botanist or geologist, right? Nope. His father, in a way only connected people can do with their offspring who fail out of college, got Charles accepted at Cambridge University on a path to enter the clergy. While at Cambridge, Darwin continued to be fascinated with the natural world, attending lectures and studies outside his coursework centered around the studies of geology and living things.

The garden side of Down House. Yep, all the pics are outside. No photographs allowed in the house.

Then came Darwin's big break. About the time he was done at Cambridge, Captain Robert FitzRoy of the H.M.S. Beagle was looking for a gentleman naturalist to accompany him on a two year long voyage to map the east coast of South America and then continue on around the world. The invitation to join FitzRoy on this trip was delivered to Darwin through John Stevens Henslow, a professor at Cambridge that Darwin knew from his time not studying anything to do with his father's choice of professions. After an objection from his father and an endorsement from his grandfather, Darwin was off. The Beagle left England in December 1831. Darwin was 22 years old. The Beagle wouldn't return to England until October of 1836 when he was 27. So much for a two year sail.

Darwin collected specimens and took notes every place he stopped along his way around the Earth, including two to three weeks in the Galapagos Islands. By "collected specimens" I of course mean he killed living creatures and took them back to England with him for later study. In his time ashore in various foreign lands, there was no a-ha! moment about anything to do with evolution. He returned to England, married his wife (and first cousin!) and moved to Downe where he spent the rest of his life.

Downe was where the theory of evolution all happened for Darwin. And it started to happen pretty quickly. But nothing was really revealed for the rest of the world to see until 1859, 17 years after he moved into Down House. There are reasons for nothing happening and something happening. Darwin had started formulating his ideas into something concrete in the early 1840s. He actually wrote a first draft in 1844. But negative public response to Robert Chambers' book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, which was published anonymously in 1844 and which argued some of the same ideas floating around in Darwin's head, caused him to pause so he could anticipate arguments that he would receive after publication of his own book.

He waited. A while. Then in June of 1858, Darwin received a letter from Alfred Russel Wallace, a fellow British naturalist, asking advice on a theory of evolution remarkably similar to his own. Worried that his work would be pre-empted by someone else, he rushed to finish and published the next year. In doing so, he stamped his name all over evolution. If he'd failed to act, people might be sticking Wallace fake-Jesus-fish-with-feet on the backs of their cars.

That's my own version of Charles Darwin's story. If you want to learn much more than I've written here about him, I strongly recommend a visit south of London to see his house. It will not only teach you about the life of one of the most influential thinkers ever, it will get you out of London for at least a half a day's trip. As small as the village of Downe is, there are two pubs in town to feed you or quench your thirst while you wait for the 146 bus to pick you up and take you back to South Bromley. We opted for the George and Dragon where we had a steak pie and a pint of Timothy Taylor's beer. You won't go wrong with the George and Dragon.

Next up for me on the travel front? A flight to Quito, Ecuador. The day after that I'll be in the Galapagos Islands looking for blue-footed boobies, giant tortoises and iguanas just like Darwin found almost 200 years ago. I'm not expecting any theories that are going to change the course of human history to come from my visit, but I do hope it will change my perspective just a little, which is really what I hope to get out of all my trips. See you on the other side. I'll be armed with a little more knowledge about Darwin than I had earlier this year.

The George and Dragon. I recommend a meat pie and at least one pint of cask ale.