HMS Beagle was a Cherokee-class 10-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy, one of more than 100 ships of this class. The vessel, constructed at a cost of £7,803, was launched on 11 May 1820 from the Woolwich Dockyard on the River Thames. Later reports say the ship took part in celebrations of the coronation of King George IV of the United Kingdom, passing under the old London Bridge, and was the first rigged man-of-war afloat upriver of the bridge. There was no immediate need for Beagle, so she "lay in ordinary", moored afloat but without masts or rigging. She was then adapted as a survey barque and took part in three survey expeditions.
John Stevens Henslow was an English Anglican priest, botanist and geologist. He is best remembered as friend and mentor to his pupil Charles Darwin.
The Darwin–Wedgwood family are members of two connected families, each noted for particular prominent 18th-century figures: Erasmus Darwin, a physician and natural philosopher, and Josiah Wedgwood, a noted potter and founder of the eponymous Wedgwood and Sons pottery company. The Darwin and Wedgwood families were on friendly terms for much of their history and members intermarried, notably Charles Darwin, who married Emma Wedgwood.
Harriet was a Galápagos tortoise who had an estimated age of 175 years at the time of her death in Australia. Harriet is one of the longest-lived known tortoises, behind Tu'i Malila, who died in 1966 at the age of 188 or 189; Jonathan, who remains alive at an age of 191, and possibly Adwaita, who died in 2006 at an estimated age of between 250 and 255 years. At the time of her death, she lived at the Australia Zoo which was owned by Steve and Terri Irwin.
Redmond O'Hanlon FRGS FRSL is an English writer and scholar.
Elizabeth Janet Browne is a British historian of science, known especially for her work on the history of 19th-century biology. She taught at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, University College, London, before returning to Harvard. She is currently Aramont Professor of the History of Science at Harvard University.
Erasmus Alvey Darwin, nicknamed Eras or Ras, was the older brother of Charles Darwin, born five years earlier. They were brought up at the family home, The Mount House, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. He was the only other son besides Charles, the fourth of six children of Susannah and Robert Darwin, and the grandson of Erasmus Darwin and of Josiah Wedgwood, a family of the Unitarian church. He was a member of the semi-secretive Cambridge Apostles society, a debating club largely reserved for the brightest students.
The Stad Amsterdam is a three-masted clipper that was built in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in 2000 at the Damen Shipyard.
Emma Nora Barlow, Lady Barlow, was a British botanist and geneticist. The granddaughter of the British naturalist Charles Darwin, Barlow began her academic career studying botany at Cambridge under Frederick Blackman, and continued her studies in the new field of genetics under William Bateson from 1904 to 1906. Her primary research focus when working with Bateson was the phenomenon of herostylism within the primrose family. In later life she was one of the first Darwinian scholars, and founder of the Darwin Industry of scholarly research into her grandfather's life and discoveries. She lived to 103.
The second voyage of HMS Beagle, from 27 December 1831 to 2 October 1836, was the second survey expedition of HMS Beagle, made under her newest commander, Robert FitzRoy. FitzRoy had thought of the advantages of having someone onboard who could investigate geology, and sought a naturalist to accompany them as a supernumerary. At the age of 22, the graduate Charles Darwin hoped to see the tropics before becoming a parson, and accepted the opportunity. He was greatly influenced by reading Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology during the voyage. By the end of the expedition, Darwin had made his name as a geologist and fossil collector, and the publication of his journal gave him wide renown as a writer.
Charles Robert Darwin was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended from a common ancestor is now generally accepted and considered a fundamental concept in science. In a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace, he introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history and was honoured by burial in Westminster Abbey.
This is a list of the writings of Charles Darwin.
Commemoration of Charles Darwin began with geographical features named after Darwin while he was still on the Beagle survey voyage, continued after his return with the naming of species he had collected, and extended further with his increasing fame. Many geographical features, species and institutions bear his name. Interest in his work has led to scholarship and publications, nicknamed the Darwin Industry, and his life is remembered in fiction, film and TV productions as well as in numerous biographies. Darwin Day has become an annual event, and in 2009 there were worldwide celebrations to mark the bicentenary of Darwin's birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of On the Origin of Species.
Beagle: In het kielzog van Darwin was a Dutch-Flemish television series from 2009 and 2010 initiated by the VPRO in collaboration with Teleac and Canvas, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of Charles Darwin's ground-breaking book On the Origin of Species. The series is centred on an 8-month voyage around the world on board the clipper Stad Amsterdam, which follows the route of the five-year-long voyage of Charles Darwin on board of the ship HMS Beagle between 1831 and 1836. The Stad Amsterdam departed from the English port of Plymouth on September 1, 2009.
Johannes Christian Vogel FLS FAAAS is a German botanist, who since 1 February 2012 has been Director General of the Museum für Naturkunde and Professor of Biodiversity and Public Science at Humboldt University, both in Berlin. He previously held the post of Keeper of Botany at the Natural History Museum in the United Kingdom from 2004 to 2012.
Christopher William Darwin is an environmentalist and nature conservationist who lives in Australia and works on his goal of halting the global mass extinction of species. He is the ambassador of the charity Bush Heritage Australia. He is the great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin.
Olga Herrera-MacBryde (1937–2007) was an Ecuadorian-American botanist and international conservationist.
Richard Brinsley Hinds FRCS was a British naval surgeon, botanist and malacologist. He sailed on the 1835–42 voyage by HMS Sulphur to explore the Pacific Ocean, and edited the natural history reports of that expedition.
Romanticism was an intellectual movement that arose in the late eighteenth century and continued through the nineteenth century. The movement had roots in the arts, literature, and science. Largely conceived as a reaction towards the extreme rationalism of the Enlightenment, it championed expressing emotions through aesthetic and emphasizing the transcendent allure of the natural world.
Benjamin Bynoe (1803–1865) was surgeon on the voyages of HMS Beagle who made collections of plants and animals at the western and northern coasts of Australia.
