Charles Darwin was born on 12th February 1809, the second son of Robert, a wealthy Shrewsbury physician, and Susannah Wedgwood of the pottery dynasty. Theirs was an affectionate and convivial household. Letters from elder brother Erasmus, a student at Christ’s, talk of cakes and buns, chemical experiments, the delights of hunting and horses and the irksome nature of college discipline. They describe plans for a laboratory in the garden of the Mount, the family home which Robert built around 1800.
Following family tradition, Charles went to Edinburgh University to study medicine, aged 16, sharing nearby lodgings with Erasmus. Bored by his lecturers, and distressed by patients’ suffering during stomach-churning surgery, he abandoned medicine in 1827.
His time at Edinburgh, however, was not wasted. Charles learned taxidermy, essential for preserving specimens, from John Edmonstone, a freed Guyanan slave who also inspired him with tales of the tropical rainforest. He joined a lively and free-thinking student society, gave his first scientific presentation and explored the coastline with his mentor Robert Grant, an expert on sponges and evolutionary thinker.
Robert Darwin proposed that Charles should become a clergyman. This combined a respectable position in society with his interest in natural history, a fitting study as revealing divine purpose and intention. Charles liked the idea of being a country clergyman, and reading divinity over the summer convinced him that he was comfortable with the beliefs of the Church. So, in October 1828 Charles was admitted as a pensioner to Christ's College.