The Life of Charles Darwin, Part 12: Laid to rest with kings and poets
Professor Mark Otten, RWC Dept. of Biology
Issue date: 6/1/09 Section: Features
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Charles Darwin died on Wednesday, April 19, 1882. Emma and the rest of the family made plans for a quiet burial in the graveyard at St. Mary's church in Downe, less than a mile from the estate they occupied for 40 years. Behind the scenes, however, several of Charles's close friends began lobbying for a more prestigious resting place. Thomas Henry Huxley approached Reverend Frederic Farrar, Canon of Westminster about interring Darwin in the abbey church. Farrar agreed to broach the possibility to Westminster's current Dean, Revered George Granville Bradley. Meanwhile John Lubbock, a sitting member of Parliament, circulated a petition among his peers seeking support for an Abbey burial. The petition, signed by 28 officials, including the Deputy Speaker, The Solicitor General, and four members of the Royal Society, was delivered to Reverend Bradley on Friday April 21. Reverend Bradley, already swayed by Farrar's argument, received the petition and agreed to Darwin's interment in Westminster.
The horse-drawn hearse bearing Darwin's body left Down House on April 25. It was cold for late April and a drizzly rain fell most of the way to London. Emma, preferring the quiet and comfort of Down House to the anticipated throng in London, did not attend the funeral. The hearse reached Westminster Abbey in the early evening. The casket was carried into the Chapel of St. Faith where it would spend the night. The next day, the abbey church was filled to capacity when the funeral began at noon under an overcast sky. The coffin was borne by the Earl of Derby (Edward Stanley), the Duke of Argyll (George Campbell), the Duke of Devonshire (William Cavendish), James Lowell (American Ambassador), Joseph Hooker, William Spottiswoode, John Lubbock, Thomas Henry Huxley, and Alfred Russel Wallace. The original plan had been to lay Darwin next to Charles Lyell, but space considerations made that impossible. In the end, Darwin was laid to rest in the north aisle next to astronomer John Herschel, not far from Lyell and the incomparable Isaac Newton.
The number of burials and memorials in Westminster Abbey is staggering. Nearly 200 of Britain's luminaries, kings and queens, prime ministers and war heroes, poets and scientists, philosophers and clerics, are interred there. I visited the abbey on July 5, 2008, with Professor Mike Roos of the RWC English Department. We were in London as part of the evolution-themed study abroad program we led in the summer of 2008. We entered the north transept with other tourists, but were quickly separated by the crowd. I made my way slowly through the cathedral, pausing frequently at burials I found particularly interesting or meaningful. The graves of Alfred Tennyson, Mary of Scotland, Edmund Spenser, and Anne Neville were among those I stopped at.
After two remarkable hours I stepped into the congregational area of the church, paused at the grave of the unknown warrior at the bottom of the nave, and made my way to the north aisle. I walked to the organ gallery, passing by the interments of physicists Ernest Rutherford and J. J. Thompson before arriving at Darwin's grave. The grave marker is a body-length, gray marble stone seated in the brown stone tile of the abbey floor. The marker is unadorned, inscribed in plain letters:
CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN
BORN 12 FEBRUARY 1809
DIED 19 APRIL 1882
I stood next to the grave for several minutes, not out of awe (it is difficult to be awed by a single grave here), but out of respect and appreciation for a man who, like nearby Newton, helped change the way we look at the world and ourselves.
[There are several outstanding biographies of Charles Darwin readily available to the public. The definitive biography is a two volume work by E. Janet Browne titled "Charles Darwin: Voyaging" and "Charles Darwin: The Power of Place." "Darwin: the Life of a Tormented Evolutionist," by Adrian Desmond and James Moore is also highly regarded. For a shorter biography of Darwin try "The Reluctant Mr. Darwin," by David Quammen.]
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