Charles Darwin was born on February 12, 1809, in Shrewsbury, England and died at the Down House in Kent on April 19, 1882. He was born to Robert and Susannah Darwin. Robert was a successful physician whose father, Erasmus Darwin, had also been a physician but had made his name as a poet of the natural world. Susannah Wedgwood came from a family of potters; her father, Josiah Wedgwood, had made a small fortune making high-quality pottery. Both sides of Darwin's family were liberal in their politics and indifferent in their religion.

Darwin spent his childhood playing at The Mount, the Darwin home and estate in Shrewsbury. He was schooled at home by his sister Caroline until he was eight years old and Susannah died. He then spent a year at a day school and transferred to a boarding school, the Shrewsbury School, only a mile away from The Mount. There he studied, getting acceptable but unremarkable grades, until age sixteen, when his father sent him to the University of Edinburgh to study medicine. Darwin focused on collecting, hunting, and naturalizing instead of medicine. It was there that he first learned to study and collect beetles. The marine biologist Robert Grant took him under his wing. After two years, it was obvious that Darwin would not become a doctor, so with the help of his father Darwin transferred to the University of Cambridge to study for the clergy of the Anglican Church. There he became friends with the older botanist John Henslow.

Soon after graduating, in 1831, Darwin was offered a position on board the HMS Beagle, a ship that was mapping the coast of South America on a two or three year voyage around the world. He eagerly accepted the opportunity and spent the next five years on board the Beagle, taking copious notes and sending thousands of samples and specimens back to Henslow in England for safe- keeping.

When Darwin returned to