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2. A Privileged Youth
- Johns Hopkins University Press
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[ 6 ] two v A Privileged Youth CHarLes HaD a PriviLegeD and happy childhood at the Mount, the family home in Shrewsbury. The one exception was the death of his mother, Susannah, in 1817, when Charles was eight years old. The motherly devotion of his three elder sisters compensated for her loss, but his father became even more autocratic and overbearing after Susannah ’s death. Charles escaped this patriarchal sternness with frequent visits to Maer Hall in Staffordshire, the nearby home of his mother’s brother, Uncle Josiah Wedgwood II, and a multitude of cousins. After his mother’s death, Charles was sent to boarding school in Shrewsbury. The school was only a mile away, so he walked the short distance home on weekends and, whenever he could, during evenings to collect beetle specimens or engage in chemistry experiments in the garden shed with his elder brother Erasmus (Ras), with whom he remained close throughout their lives. This hobby resulted in Charles’s school nickname of “Gas.” Charles was unsuited to the classical education he received at Shrewsbury School (the only subjects taught were Latin and Greek, with a smattering of ancient geography and history ) and was a mediocre student. This less-than-stellar academic performance displeased Robert Darwin. When Charles became bored with chemistry at age fifteen and took up hunting, his frustrated father erupted, saying, “You care [ 7 ] for nothing but shooting, dogs, and rat-catching, and you will be a disgrace to yourself and all your family.” Dr. Darwin then removed Charles from school and allowed him to serve as an assistant in his medical practice. Charles recorded medical histories from his father’s patients and made guesses at diagnoses. This prepared him to join brother Ras at Edinburgh University in 1825, where he was the third generation of Darwins to have studied medicine. Charles and Ras made the most of life as wealthy, young gentlemen in an exciting, big city. Charles thought the medical lectures were boring, and the horror of surgery without anesthesia was too much for him to take. In his second year at Edinburgh, Charles ignored his medical studies and concentrated instead on natural history. He visited local fishermen and sorted through their nets. He also gravitated toward zoologist and physician Robert Edmond Grant, a sponge expert who stimulated Charles’s interest in marine invertebrates with The Mount, the Darwin family home in Shrewsbury, where Charles grew up. It was built by Robert Darwin after his marriage in 1796. The photo dates from 1909. [100.25.40.11] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 08:51 GMT) [ 8 ] field trips to the Firth of Forth, research projects, and presentations at scientific societies. Charles attended a lecture by the visiting American painter and ornithologist John James Audubon and became fascinated with taxidermy. This led him to take private lessons on how to stuff birds from John Edmonston, a former slave who accompanied an expedition to South America and was probably the only black man in Edinburgh at this time. He loved Edmonston’s stories of exploration, and the two became Josiah Wedgwood II, Charles Darwin’s “Uncle Jos” and father-in-law. It was Uncle Jos who persuaded Charles’s father to allow Charles to go on the Beagle voyage. Josiah was the senior partner of Josiah Wedgwood & Sons, Ltd., and Emma’s father. Painted by William Owen. (Wedgwood Museum) [ 9 ] friends. Charles was much more interested in natural history than in medicine, and he expressed his unhappiness in letters to his sisters. In his second year at Edinburgh, Charles traveled to Paris, with his father’s permission, to visit his cousins (including Emma Wedgwood) who were on holiday there. Charles and Emma, now both eighteen, had practically grown up together. In a letter to his sisters, Charles remarked on how beautiful Emma had become as a young lady. Meanwhile, back at home, Charles’s sisters prevailed upon Dr. Darwin to remove Charles from Edinburgh, which he did in April 1827. He decided that, if Charles was not going to become a physician, he should become a clergyman. This could only be done at an English university approved by the Church of England, so Charles was sent to Cambridge University to study for the church, even though the Darwins were not a religious household. Rather the opposite was true, as grandfather Erasmus, father Robert, and brother Ras were freethinkers. Charles had some reservations about professing his belief in the dogma of the Church of England, but the...