1836 October 4
Darwin arrived at The Mount in the evening and found the family was fast asleep. The next morning he strolled into the dining room while his father and sisters were having breakfast. An immediate pandemonium of delight broke out all over the house. Much celebration commenced and a few of the servants became drunk.

After the house quieted down, Darwin spent the day writing letters to all his friends and relatives. Charles Robert Darwin, once an insecure college graduate, had become a seasoned naturalist and a man at the start of a journey whose conclusion would forever change the way humanity views its place in the world.

1836 October 15
Darwin went to Cambridge to see his friend Revd. John Stevens Henslow. When he arrived he spent a long time talking with Revd. Henslow about what to do with all his collections of specimens. Later in the week he met with Adam Sedgwick and they talked for hours on end about the geology of South America.


1836 October 20
Darwin went to London to visit with his brother, Erasmus. He also spent a lot of time going to all the London museums, hunting for people to examine and catalogue his specimens. Unfortunately, nearly all the museums were seriously backlogged with specimens recently brought in from the British Colonies.

1836 October 24
Darwin spent his time waiting around in London for the Beagle to arrive at the Woolwich dockyards.

1836 October 29
H.M.S. Beagle arrived at the Woolwich dockyards to be paid off. Darwin got the remaining crates off the ship with Syms Covington's help. He became very worried about what to do with the huge pile of crates sitting on the dock. Eventually much of them went to Revd. Henslow in Cambridge. In the evening he met Charles Lyell for the first time at Lyell's house for dinner, and was also introduced to Richard Owen. Lyell helped Darwin in finding naturalists to take his specimens for examination, and Owen eagerly volunteered to examine some his animal and fossil specimens.

1836 November
At some time during this month Darwin severed his friendship with Robert Grant, an old friend and teacher from his Edinburgh days. Grant was very interested in looking over his specimens of coral, but Darwin did not want his years of hard work tainted by a radical evolutionist trouble maker. From this time forward Darwin and Robert Grant parted ways forever.

1836 November 1
A proposal was put forth to admit Charles Darwin as a Fellow of the Royal Geological Society.

1836 November 11
After spending a week with his fossil specimens at the Royal College of Surgeons, Darwin headed to Shrewsbury for a ten day visit. He also went to see his uncle Josiah at Maer Hall, and to Overton to visit his sister, Marianne, and her husband, Henry Parker. While visiting Maer Hall, his uncle suggested to Darwin that he should publish a book of his five year voyage around the world.



1836 December 06
Darwin returned to London and disposed of all his fossils at the Royal College of Surgeons. He spent the next week engaged in looking for naturalists to take his other specimens.

1836 December 13
Darwin left London for Cambridge and stayed at Revd. Henslow's house. While there he gave a talk to the Cambridge Philosophical Society about the formation of glassy tubes that were formed when lightening struck the sandy beaches near Maldonado, South America.

1836 December 16
Perhaps because he felt his was imposing on the Henslow's, Darwin moved out and took lodgings in 22 Fitzwilliam Street, Cambridge.

1836 Winter
Darwin spent the winter writing a paper on South America, and organizing his huge collection of specimens.

1837 January 4
This was a big day for Darwin. Today he gave his first speech before the Royal Geological Society in London. He was very nervous! All the experts in geology were there and this was Darwin's big chance to prove himself to his peers. The topic of his paper was on the gradual raising of South America over eons of time. He concluded that as land masses raise upward, the nearby ocean floor subsides, and that the animals on the raising continent somehow or another adapt to these very slow changes (at this time Darwin had no idea how this happened). This theory represented a shift away from Lyell's theory which stated that animals cannot adapt, but rather die out and are replaced with new species. This was one of the earliest signs that Darwin was beginning to develop his own theories, going beyond his mentors. The speech, by the way, was received very well by nearly all the geologists there.

1837 March 6
Darwin left Cambridge and moved in with his brother in London. Over the next few weeks his brother, Erasmus, introduced him to London's more influential scientific elite's. One of these elite's was Charles Babbage, the inventor of the "difference engine" - the first calculating machine, and forerunner of modern computers. Babbage introduced Charles Darwin to the idea that everything in nature worked according to specific laws. This idea prompted Darwin to seek out the natural laws which governed the transmutation of species.



1837 middle of March
Darwin moved out of his brother's place and took up residence nearby in 36 Great Marlborough Street. Syms Covington stayed on as his servant. During this month Darwin began to have doubts about the idea of new species coming about by a series of miraculous creations, and he was starting to question Paley's "argument from design" thesis. Based on his observations during the Beagle voyage, Darwin saw that some new theory of speciation was needed. This was to become his quest, to discover the process by which new species come to exist.

1837 late March
For the past few months John Gould, an ornithologist at the London Zoo Museum, had been examining the birds Darwin brought back from the Galapagos Islands. Gould quickly discovered that the birds were not finches, blackbirds, wrens, and gross beaks as Darwin thought, but were in fact all distinct species of finches. Upon further examination Gould saw that the major distinction between the finches was the shape of their beaks.

Darwin now had an exciting mystery on his hands. How did an original population of finches from the mainland migrate to the Galapagos and then change into several species? Unfortunately, Darwin did a very poor labeling job on the birds for he did not think that noting what island they were found on was important. Over the next few months he got in touch with other Beagle crew members who had also collected birds at the Galapagos, and luckily many of them had labeled which island their birds were taken from. Armed with his new finch location data, Darwin saw that each species existed its own island, somehow filling some kind of island niche.

1837 May 3
Darwin was influenced by the recent discovery of "fossilized monkeys" in Africa. He conjectured that such fossils were evidence that mankind was descended from some kind of ape ancestor. However, he dared not mention this to anyone, as such talk was tantamount to heresy.



1837 May - June
Theories of how new species come into being started to fill Darwin's head. He discussed the topic of species change with his new friend, Richard Owen. As far as Owen was concern, each species had its own "organizing energy" which dictated how far a species can change (not very much, according to Owen). Furthermore, there was a relationship between the complexity of a species and the power of this organizing force. Darwin told Owen he agreed with his basic theory, but he did not see why their should be limits to change. Owen then gave Darwin a stern lecture on the subject, reminding him that there was no reason for new species to come into being. Darwin was quickly learning to keep his mouth shut regarding the transmutation of species.

1837 June
By this time Darwin was slowly becoming obsessed with transmutation. One of his earliest theories of species change was that each species has a fixed life span and somehow they became extinct when their "life force" was used up. In his "Red Notebook" which he started onboard the Beagle, he noted that the giant llamas of South America seemed to die out even though they had not experienced a climatic change. For Darwin this pointed to their "life force" running out. Still, he had to explain how new species of llama took the place of the extinct ones. This line of inquiry was put on hold because he had to finish editing his "Journal of Researches" and he was also working on his "Zoology" series. It was during this time that Darwin began to experience stomach troubles for days on end.

1837 June 20
After seven months of work his volume of the "Journal of Researches" was finally complete, but publication was delayed because the volume Capt. FitzRoy was writing was going slower than anticipated. Darwin started writing another book on South American geology, and also devoted much time to the study of transmutation - in secret of course.

1837 around July
Darwin began his "B" Notebook in which he put down his thoughts on the subject of transmutation. In this notebook Darwin examined four general questions --

- what was the evidence for species transmutation?
- how did species adapt to a changing environment?
- how were new species formed?
- how one could account for the similarities between different species?

One of the highlights of the B Notebook was his analogy of a branching tree to represent common descent of all species.


1837 Summer
The next few months were spent deep in thought about transmutation. Darwin started trying to figure out how plants and animals crossed from mainland continents to islands far out in the ocean. During this time he only spoke to his brother about his transmutation ideas.

1837 September 20
Darwin was experiencing heart problems which may have been caused by the stress brought on by his heretical transmutation research. He stopped work for a short time and went home to Shrewsbury, stopping along the way to visit the Wedgwood estate. During this visit he paid particular attention to his first cousin, Emma Wedgwood.

1838 February
The first volume of "Zoology" was published ("Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, Part I"). This first in a series of five books covered the fossil mammals collected during the Beagle voyage.

1838 February 5
Darwin accepted the position of vice-president of the Entomological Society, despite Lyell's warning not to let such appointments get in the way of his research and writing.

1838
During this time Darwin was struggling between the desire to go public with his transmutation theories, and being ostracized by his fellow naturalists (Henslow, Sedgwick, Lyell and others). He solved this dilemma by keeping quiet for the time being. To add more stress to his life, Darwin was starting to disagree with his peers about the preeminence of mankind. For Darwin, all species were equally impressive right down to the simple earthworms. For him, natural laws determined how an organism developed and such laws play no favorites. The only problem was that he had no idea what these laws of nature were.


1838 middle of March
He started his "C" notebook which focused mainly on transmutation, the distribution of species, the relation between habit and structure, and behavioral adaptations. The manner in which Darwin gathered information for this notebook was rather clever. He fired off a list of questions to pigeon breeders, dog breeders, experts on animal husbandry, and a host of other animal experts. The questions centered on how they bred animals and the results they got from different kinds of crosses. In a time when the subject of variation of species was taboo, this was a "harmless" way to gather information that may support the theories he was developing.

1838 Spring
Darwin began to formulate a crude notion "Descent" and was just getting started with the idea of "Fitness." From the breeders he wrote letters to he learned that an animal need not be perfectly suited to its environment in order to survive. Indeed, he learned that the bird breeders were selecting traits that would be harmful to the animals in the wild (bright gaudy colors, huge clumsy feathers, etc.). He also saw that nature was eliminating the same variations that breeders were trying to encourage. The question was, how did nature kill them off?

For a fleeting moment Darwin toyed with the idea of a struggle for existence. He also began to see that the adaptation of species was relative to the environment a species lived in. As the environment changed, so too did species change in order to survive. The commonly held belief that all species were perfectly adapted to their surroundings was therefore false. He was also convinced that there were no separate races of man, but only environmentally adapted modifications of them. Soon, Darwin was expanding the influence of descent, making it responsible for emotions, habits, instincts, ethics, and morals.

1838 March 28
There was a new curiosity at the London Zoo and Darwin went out to have a look. It was an orangutan named Jenny. He was fascinated by this orangutan and spent many an hour observing it. Jenny, it seemed, displayed emotions in the same manner as a human child. Darwin was fascinated!



1838 Spring or Summer
The first thoughts of getting married started to run through Darwin's head. He even went so far as to jot down a list of pros and cons of marriage. If he remained a bachelor he could go wherever he wished - tour Europe, maybe even visit America and do geology. Marriage would mean children, and that would mean a loss of time with his research. He would become a fat and idle gentleman. However, marriage would also mean he would have someone to look after him, someone to talk to and care for. He also considered taking a professorship at Cambridge, or if he lived out in the country he would have the peaceful quiet of a private life and could breed plants and animals.

1838 Spring or Summer
While reading up on animal breeding, Darwin came across a pamphlet written by a politician and professional animal breeder by the name of Sir John Sebright. It was titled "The Art of Improving Breeds of Domestic Animals" (1809). In this pamphlet Darwin was struck by one particular statement which said that the weak do not survive long enough to pass on their traits.

1838 May 10
Darwin paid a visit to Revd. Henslow at Cambridge for a few days and had thoughts of settling there. He did not like London very much, but unfortunately that was where all the "action" was for the natural sciences.

1838 Spring
Darwin began to consider that human thoughts and actions were inherited and governed by some sort of natural law. If true, this would imply that not only men, but also women, should be educated to the highest possible standards. By doing so one's children would get a double dose of beneficial traits. He told his theory of inherited characteristics to Henslow but he thought it was utter foolishness. Perhaps it was to Lamarckian for him?

1838 Spring
Due to concern for his reputation, Darwin decided to not publish any of his transmutation theories for many years to come.


1838 June 23
His health problems started to become worse - more heart troubles, stomach pains, nausea, and headaches. Figuring that some time in the country would do him some good, Darwin went on holiday to northern Scotland. He explored the Glen Roy valley, forty miles south-west of Inverness, where he studied the famous "Parallel Roads" running along the sides of the valley. He theorized that the roads were caused by the retreat of ancient seas as the valley rose over eons of time. If true, this would add support to his theory of raising land masses (these formations are now known to have been caused by the action of retreating glacial lake).

1838 July 15
Darwin left Scotland in good health and high spirits and paid a visit back home at Shrewsbury. He told his father about the transmutation theories he had been working on. He also brought up the subject of marrying his cousin, Emma Wedgwood. His father reminded him that the Wedgwoods were far more religious than the Darwins, especially the women. If he was going to marry Emma Wedgwood, it would be prudent to keep his non-religious opinions to himself. While Darwin was at The Mount he started his "D" and "M" Notebooks. The D Notebook focused on species reproduction and the origin of adaptation, while the M Notebook continued with the origin of adaptation, and then went on to the origin of man, and the expression of emotions.

1838 July 29
Darwin rode out to the Wedgwood estate to see Emma. They spent much time together, engaged in intimate conversation, but he did not bring up the topic of marriage. He did, however, do exactly what his father told him not to do - he expressed his religious views to Emma. In brief, he told her he believed that nature was not influenced by divine intervention, but rather, nature worked according to specific natural laws.

1838 August 1
Upon returning to London Darwin started to work on the topic of free will, theorizing that all thoughts and actions were simply functions of the brain following the dictates of natural laws. He did, however, see these natural laws as a product of god's creation. By now Darwin had several projects going at the same time. The Beagle Journal was waiting to be published (Capt. FitzRoy was still causing delays), the Zoology series needed a lot of work, the Geology of South America book was being edited down to a smaller text on the formation of coral reefs, and a paper he was writing on his observations at Glen Roy was coming along well. In his spare time (one wonders how he managed to find any!) he went to the London Zoo to observe the facial expressions of baboons and monkeys.


1838 September 21
Darwin had a dream of being executed by hanging.

1838 October
Darwin read a book by the famous economist, Revd. Thomas Malthus, titled "Essay on the Principle of Population." In this book Malthus put forward the economic theory that as human populations grow and resources become scarce the weak die off in a struggle for existence. Darwin theorized that the same kind of relationship may exist in the wild. In other words, what Malthus saw in economics, Darwin saw in nature.

1838 October 2
Darwin began his "E" and "N" Notebooks. The "E" book continued his transmutation ideas, his thoughts on the population theory of Thomas Malthus, how variation and adaptation are related, the rate of species change, the separation of the sexes, and the differences between selection by animal breeders and selection in nature. The "N" Notebook continued the topics covered in "M" but with fewer theoretical considerations and more definition of terms.

1838 November 11
Charles Darwin proposed to Emma Wedgwood at Maer Hall. Everyone at the house was overjoyed, especially the Wedgwood ladies. The next day Darwin went to Shrewsbury to tell his father and sisters, all of whom were extremely happy for him. Arrangements were made for Darwin and Emma to receive a £5,000 dowry, plus £400 a year from Josiah Wedgwood II, along with £10,000 from his father, Dr. Robert Darwin, which would be invested for the newlyweds. Now Darwin could look forward to not having to work for a living; giving him plenty of free time for his book writing and transmutation research.

To get an idea of how well off Darwin and Emma would be, it may be useful to consider the average yearly wages for certain occupations during the Victorian era -

Wealthy merchant or banker - £10,000 a year
Physician or lawyer - £1,500 a year
Civil servants - £500 a year

Assuming the £15,000 they received was invested wisely (most of it was) and brought in an annual yield of 10%, they could expect an annual income of about £2,000 a year. While this may not seem like a lot today, in the 1830's this amount was considered a small fortune.



1838 late November
After all the marriage details were worked out, Darwin returned to London and started house hunting. He continued working with the variation of species and now saw that the methods of nature and breeders were not all that different, but while nature worked on millions of characteristics, breeders worked on only a few. Both, however, weeded out undesirable traits.

1839 January 1
Darwin moved into 12 Upper Gower Street, London (just a few blocks from Regent's Park). His servant, Syms Covington, helped him move all his belongings. After a few days the house looked like a cluttered museum of natural history.

1839 January 24
Darwin was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of London.

1839 January 29
Charles Darwin married Emma Wedgwood at St. Peter's Church at Maer. The newlyweds returned to London rather hastily, making the guests quite upset. One possible explanation for leaving early may have been that by now Darwin had developed his fear of being in crowds of people for long periods of time.

1839 Winter
Emma started to become very worried about Darwin's salvation. She was aware that his transmutation research was consuming his thoughts and she feared it may lead him away from Christianity. A few weeks later Syms Covington said farewell to Darwin and headed off to Australia along with thousands of other British citizens during this time. A gentleman by the name of Joseph Parslow became Darwin's new servant, a position he would hold for the next forty years.


1839 Winter or Spring
Darwin began flooding animal breeders and farmers with a seemingly endless barrage of questions about species variation and inheritance. He compiled a list of twenty-one questions, written on eight quarto pages. He wished to know, for example, if the characteristics of hybrids are maintained in future generations, how cross breeding effected the vigor of a species, and the results of crossing wild types with established breeds. Unfortunately the list of questions overwhelmed the breeders due to their complexity and as a result very few of them responded.

1839 late May
The three volume narrative of the Beagle voyage was finally published. It included Capt. Philip King's narrative of the first Beagle voyage, and Darwin's and Capt. FitzRoy's narratives of the second. The Victorians were quite keen on books with long titles, in this case it was - "Narrative of the Surveying Voyages of His Majesty's Ships Adventure and Beagle between the years 1826 and 1836." Unfortunately, the books received luke warm reviews, mainly due to volume two and three being too repetitious.

1839 June
Darwin finished working on his transmutation notebooks (N was the last one) and continued with his book - "The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs." Concern that his ideas would be used for atheistic revolutionary ends, he decided not to publish anything from the notebooks and shelved them.

1839 August
Darwin's narrative of the Beagle voyage was published separately and given the title - "Journal of Researches into the Natural History and Geology of the Countries Visited During the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle." Fortunately, this time his journal sold very well, and still does so today - 162 years later.


1839 December 27
Darwin and Emma had their first child, a boy whom they named William Erasmus Darwin, after one of Darwin's great-grandfathers.

1840 Winter
Migraines, pains in the heart, nausea and stomach problems started taking a heavier toll on Darwin. By now even a little excitement in his life brought on illness, so he became more and more of a recluse.

1840 April
Darwin was still experiencing ill health. He went home to Shrewsbury to have his father examine him. The Doctor was at a loss and gave a diagnosis of "cause unknown."

1840 Summer
Being quite ill all summer and confined to bed, Darwin got very little work done on his book writing projects or his transmutation research.

1840 November
Darwin gave a lot thought to how a bat's wings developed over time and wondered what good half a wing would do. Perhaps wings previously had a different function? Darwin also pondered over fossil evidence for the transmutation of species. At the time there were very few of them in the museums, but he figured in the future enough would be found to provide evidence for one species changing into another.

1841 February
Darwin was still sick and could only work for a few hours a day. Due to ill health, he resigned from the Geological Society.

1841 March 2
Anne Elizabeth Darwin was born.


1841 Summer
By this time Darwin saw the need to get out of London and into the clean open countryside. His father agreed to buy him a house. The summer was spent looking for a new place out in the country, but still close enough to London so he would be able to visit his fellow naturalists.

1842 March 7
At long last Darwin completed his Coral Reefs book. He then went to Shrewsbury, hoping the escape from London would do his health some good. His plan was not successful, however.

1842 May
Part one of Darwin's Geological Observations series - "The Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs" was published by Smith, Elder of London.

1842 late June
While at Shrewsbury Darwin wrote up a thirty-five page sketch of his ideas about transmutation. This was the very first rough draft of his theory. In it he had natural selection figured out, and had a basic description of descent, both of which he said obeyed strict laws of nature. It is interesting to note that at this time Darwin thought these "laws of nature" were set forth by god during creation, after which time god stepped back and no longer intervened with the universe.

1842
Darwin made an outline of reasons not to published his transmutation ideas -

[1] Fellow naturalists would never accept his ideas.
[2] animal breeders would find a huge treatise too boring to read.
[3] the trouble making atheists would use it for their evil agendas.
[4] the church would scorn him.
[5] he did not want to be labeled an atheist.
[6] he would betray his friends and family to whom he owed so much.

1842 July 18
Still not feeling better, Darwin returned to London and rewrote his rough sketch, expanding it a little. His spare time was used up in house hunting.

1842 July 22
At last he located a suitable house in Kent. It was called Down House, and he purchased it (rather, his father did) for about £2,000. It was just a mile or two south of the village of Downe, Kent with a population of about 450 people.