‘The Voyage of the Beagle has been by far the most important event of my life and has determined my whole career.’
Letters awaiting the new graduate’s return to Shrewsbury from a geology field trip in Wales in August, 1831 changed the future direction of Darwin’s life.
One was from George Peacock, mathematics tutor at Trinity and naval hydrographer whom the Admiralty had asked to recommend a naturalist to accompany the surveying ship HMS Beagle on a two-year expedition. The other from Henslow urged Darwin to accept. ‘You are the very man they are in search of.’ Zeal and a spirit of adventure were at least as important as detailed scientific knowledge. Henslow persuaded Darwin that he was ‘amply qualified for collecting, observing, & noting any thing worthy to be noted in Natural History’.
Robert Darwin was less than enthusiastic about a further delay to his son’s clerical career only consenting after Charles enlisted the help of his uncle, Josiah Wedgwood.
Delayed by bad weather HMS Beagle finally set sail on December 27, 1831 under the command of Robert FitzRoy. The expedition aimed to survey the southern coast of Tierra del Fuego before proceeding to the South Sea Islands, returning by the Indian Archipelago.
'I am writing this...’ in his diary, letters home, official reports and Journal and Remarks, published in 1839, Darwin recorded his experiences of a voyage of a lifetime which lasted nearly five years.
Click on a link to see a map of part of Darwin's journey.