8 Charles Darwin – In London
Charles Darwin reached Shrewsbury in the late evening. Not wishing to disturb the
household, he spent the night at a local inn and to their mutual delight he walked in on
his family at breakfast. Writing to Robert FitzRoy, his benefactor and companion of
the last five years, he describes his joy at being home:
My Dear FitzRoy,I arrived here yesterday at breakfast-time, and, thank God, found all
my dear sisters and father quite well. My father appears more cheerful and very little older
than when I left. My sisters assure me that I do not look the least different, and I am able to
return the compliment ... I hope you will not forget to send me a note telling me how you
go on ... If you do not receive much satisfaction for all the mental and bodily energy you
have expended in His Majesty’s service, you will be most hardly treated.CHAS. DARWINAfter three weeks of delightful reunion with his family, Darwin travelled to
Greenwich to oversee the unloading of his precious collection. No naturalist since
Joseph Banks had the opportunity to see so much of the world and to be able to
compare the natural history of different continents as Charles Darwin. He had returned
to England with thousands of specimens, enough to fill a complete museum of its own
and they would take years to study. He was not an expert on anything and needed to
find those taxonomists who could describe and classify each one of them. Fortunately,
Darwin was able to call on his Cambridge connections to find those experts who could
help. Richard Owen took the fossil mammals, John Gould took on the birds, John
Stevens Henslow looked at the plants and Thomas Bell would study the reptiles. After
Joseph Hooker returned to England from his voyage to the southern continents and
Antarctica, Darwin invited him to classify the plants that he had collected in South
America and the Galapagos Islands. Hooker agreed and the pair began a lifelong
friendship.
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