Today is Darwin Day, celebrating one of history's most famous biologists annually on the 12th February. This October (2025) will also mark 200 years since Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) arrived in Edinburgh. At the age of 16 following in his father's footsteps (Robert Darwin) and grandfather's (Erasmus Darwin), to study medicine at the University of Edinburgh. The British naturalist, geologist, and biologist is well known for the theory of evolution by natural selection and publication, The Origin of Species (1859).
Charles Darwin In Edinburgh
About Charles Darwin
The fifth of six children, born in Shrewsberry, Shopshire (12th February 1809) to Robert and Susannah Darwin. Susannah Darwin died when Charles Darwin was only 8 years old. The daughter of successful 18th-century industrialist - Josiah Wedgwood, founder of England's world-renowned Wedgwood pottery.
There are many interesting family descendants and connections including photographers, mathematicians, lawyers, and more. You can find out more in the informative Charles Darwin Family Tree YouTube video embedded below.
Accommodation In Edinburgh
Darwin boarded with his older brother Erasmus (who started studying medicine a year earlier) at a lodging house at 11 Lothian Street. Darwin is reported as saying in letters to his father, "We got into our lodgings yesterday evening, which are very comfortable and near the College. Our Landlady, by name Mrs Mackay, is a nice clean old body, and exceedingly civil and attentive. She lives in 11 Lothian Street, Edinburgh and only four flights of steps from the ground floor which is very moderate to some other lodgings that we were nearly taking. The terms are 1£-6s for two very nice and light bedrooms and a nice sitting room; by the way, light bedrooms are very scare articles in Edinburgh, since most of them are little holes in which there is neither air not light.
Studying In Edinburgh
Charles Darwin enrolled at The University of Edinburgh as Charles Darwin - Shopshire, on October 22nd 1825. Taking classes in midwifery, practice of physic, natural history, and also chemistry lectures. After two years Darwin left without graduating, uninspired by lectures and "haunted" after witnessing two surgeries. Darwin wrote in his autobiography (1876) that lectures "were intolerably dull, with the exception of those on chemistry by Hope .... Dr. Duncan's lectures on Materia Medica at 8 o'clock on a winter's morning are something fearful to remember. Dr. --made his lectures on human anatomy as dull as he was himself". “I also attended on two occasions the operating theatre in the hospital at Edinburgh, and saw two very bad operations, one on a child, but I rushed away before they were completed. Nor did I ever attend again, for hardly any inducement would have been strong enough to make me do so; this being long before the blessed days of chloroform. The two cases fairly haunted me for many a long year.”
Additional Curricular Activities
Darwin "spent a lot of time in the University library and museum, then in what is now the Talbot Rice Gallery. Darwin had a desk in the stairwell. He met many of the pre-eminent men of the day. Discussions about geology must have made an impression on Darwin as Charles Lyell gave Darwin the first volume of his book Principles of Geology, published in 1830, just in time for his voyage on The Beagle, and on his return Darwin described himself as a geologist.
Darwin heard Audubon lecture on North American birds and demonstrate his method of supporting birds with wire". - Rosemary Mann (volunteer Guide, National Museum of Scotland 7th June 2019).
Additional curricular activities included becoming a member of the Plinian Society, a club for students interested in natural history founded in 1823. Today the two-minute books from February 1826 to the end of the Society's existence in 1841 are said to be preserved in the University Library. The meetings are said to have taken place on Tuesday evenings with Darwin elected as a member of the Society on November 28, 1826 - "favourably known for his interest in natural history".
Darwin's interest in nature found him making friends with some of the Newhaven fishermen, that he accompanied when they dredged for oysters "and thus got many specimens". His notebook records Pennatula mirabilis (now Virgularia mirabilis) and Pennatula phosphorea from the Firth of Forth. Collecting the cocoons of Pontobdella, oyster, and other shells as well as his specimens of Flustra carbasea "from the dredge boats at Newhaven".
Charles Darwin's Prof. Robert Jamieson (natural history including zoology & geology) formed an "extensive and important natural history museum in the University of Edinburgh, which was incredible with an excellent state of preservation of its specimens and their scientific arrangement, including its large collection of birds. The entire museum collection, said to have been, in Great Britain, "second only to that of the British Museum", was handed over a year after Prof. Jameson's death to the new Government Museum of Science and Art, once the Royal Scottish Museum today the National Museum of Scotland.
Charles Darwin and John Edmonstone (lived at number 37) neighbours on Lothian Street. A lecturer in taxidermy at the University of Edinburgh, and who sold specimens to the museum. Darwin became more interested in natural history. Learning to observe, dissect, and prepare specimens, taking private lessons in taxidermy from Edmonstone.
"By the way, a negro lived in Edinburgh … and gained his livelihood by stuffing birds, which he did excellently: he gave me lessons for payment, and I used often to sit with him, for he was a very pleasant and intelligent man.”
The Origin Of Species
Darwin was recommended by Cambridge professors after Captiain, FitzRoy asked for a naturalist to join the second South American survey circumnavigating the globe in HMS Beagle. Robert Darwin was reluctant to give permission and, to finance the trip. It took several weeks to convince him. The voyage lasted from 1831 to 1836. Darwin collected thousands of specimens, making observations on animals, plants, and geology in tropical rainforests and other new habits, that he had never seen before. Exploring the islands and continent, including the Galápagos, where in 1837, Darwin, in a notebook, jotted down his ideas for evolution through natural selection and helped him develop his theories on evolution.
"Darwin visited Edinburgh again, in 1838, on his way to study the geology of Glen Roy. He spent some time on Salisbury Crags, studying the geology described by Hutton.
He worked on his book On the Origin of Species for many years; it was finally published in 1859. Not many years later, Darwin was selected to represent biology on the front of the Museum, opened less than ten years after the publication of On the Origin of Species" - Rosemary Mann (volunteer Guide, National Museum of Scotland 7th June 2019).
Origin of Species was a bestseller worldwide and with each new edition Darwin revised and strengthened his arguments. It was the fifth edition, published in 1869 that contained the phrase survival of the fittest.
"One general law, leading to the advancement of all organic beings, namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die" - Charles Darwin, from 'On the Origin of Species'
Celebrating Charles Darwin Today In Edinburgh
Today we celebrate rare specimens collected by Charles Darwin while on the Voyage onboard the Beagle, which are now in the Herbarium of the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (holds around 3 million specimens of plants and fungi from across the world and covers a time-span of over 300 years. The oldest specimen dates from 1697. Receiving up to 30,000 specimens each year). Here is one of the latest discoveries by Martin Gardner at the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (One of The World's Leading Scientific Botanical Gardens). when he finds, the rare endemic plant specimen of Tiquilia darwinii (Boraginaceae), collected by Charles Darwin in the Galápagos Islands in 1835.
Highly recommend a visit to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh! open daily from 10 AM, except on January 1 and December 25. With interesting exhibitions, fun events including Christmas at the Botanics and currently the Snowdrop Festival (until 16th February 2025).
National Museum of Scotland
While exploring Edinburgh, don't miss a visit to the National Museum of Scotland with over 12 million incredible, historical, and interesting objects across the museum and stores with exhibitions including Collecting Stories!
See a copy of The Origin Of Species by Charles Darwin and a Chillian Earth-Creeper!
National Library of Scotland
The National Library of Scotland is now in its 100th year with more than 50 million items in its care including rare letters between John Murray and Charles Darwin.
John Murray took a risk and published Charles Darwin's 'On the Origin of Species', widely recognised as the foundation for evolutionary biology, on 24 November 1859.
'Origin' sold out its first edition of 1,250 copies quickly and a corrected second edition of 3000 copies was published in January 1860. Murray continued to publish revised editions. He also published Darwin's 'The Descent of Man' (1871) and 'The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals' (1872).
The National Library of Scotland has interesting, educational, and interactive exhibits taking place throughout the year and more in 2025, celebrating the centenary.
![Letter from Charles Darwin to John Murray III, 31 March 1859 [Library reference: MS.42153].](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/541a71_9eb2ce802d554928a6d622251b9343f2~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_393,h_500,al_c,q_80,enc_avif,quality_auto/541a71_9eb2ce802d554928a6d622251b9343f2~mv2.jpg)
I hope you have enjoyed reading and feel inspired to visit one or more, Charles Darwin In Edinburgh locations.
Until next time,
Michelle
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