Scientific Institution
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Darwin and Beyond – a major forthcoming BRLSI initiative To celebrate the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin of Species, the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution is organising a major year-long series of themed talks, events and displays in 2009 under the title ‘Darwin and Beyond’, covering many aspects of Darwin’s life, the influences upon his work and aspects of his legacy. Presentations on the life sciences, linguistics, philosophy, religion, literature, poetry and the visual arts are planned, as well as an exhibition 'Mr Darwin's Fishes' which, using original material from the BRLSI collections, will tell the story of the publication of the Beagle fish specimens for 'The Zoology of the Beagle' and explore Darwin's approach to research and his interactions with his scientific contemporaries. BRLSI members are invited to suggest subjects for inclusion into this programme; please contact Martin Sturge at darwin@brlsi.org There is a comprehensive programme of Darwin-related events happening nationwide and information about these can be found on www.darwin200.org |
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Charles Darwin and Leonard JenynsBath can claim a unique connection to Charles Darwin through the work of his lifelong friend, natural scientist and clergyman, Leonard Jenyns. The two had met at Cambridge, and shared a common interest in beetling forays. When Jenyns declined the offer of a place as naturalist on board the Beagle owing to his clerical duties, he and his brother-in-law, John Stevens Henslow, encouraged Darwin to go on the Beagle. On his return, Darwin asked Jenyns to undertake the descriptions of the fish specimens he bought back with him, a rigorous and exacting scientific study that was published between 1840 and 1842 as ‘Fishes of the Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle’. Jenyns moved to Bath and the two continued to correspond throughout the rest of their lives, especially during the period that Darwin was honing his ideas for Origin of Species when they exchanged ideas and views. Jenyns had a close connection with the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution and continued to work for many years on aspects of natural history and meteorology. His many scientific papers and publications were left to the Institution along with his personal library of over 2000 books and his collected correspondence of 700 letters with eminent scientists of the day. All these are now in the collections of the BRLSI. ……………………………………………………………………………… Nineteenth Century BeetlemaniaMy research for the BRLSI exhibition in 2009, Mr Darwin’s Fish, has taken me recently to the Cambridge Museum of Zoology where they have in their specimen store some ninety jars of fish specimens collected by Darwin on the Beagle. Pale, ghostly forms, their colour faded, they are now preserved and celebrated for their chance association with this most significant expedition. I was also shown the notebook Leonard Jenyns used while he was completing his study of the fishes for Darwin, inscribed at the front “Notes on the fishes collected by Chas. Darwin Esq. in the voyage of HMS Beagle between the years 1826 and 1836 by the Rev. Leonard Jenyns FLS 1842”. Jenyns was a meticulous note-taker, in a characteristically clear and ordered hand. He undertook the work conscientiously but it was a demanding project and Darwin knew that he struggled at times. “Henslow tells me he hears a groan occasionally escape from you, when you mention my fishes but I am so very glad that you have undertaken to do what you can, that I am hardly able to pity even your groans” Darwin wrote to Jenyns in 1837. This museum also possesses the beetle collections of Darwin and Jenyns, formed during the earlier part of their lives when they were both living in or near Cambridge and went out ‘beetling’ together. Jenyns writes of Darwin in his autobiography that Darwin was “at that time a most zealous entomologist and attended but little – so far as I remember – to any other branch of Natural History”. Darwin seems to have been either a lucky or a skilled operator, according to Jenyns’ rueful comment– “He mostly used a sweeping net, with which he made a number of successful captures I had never made myself, though a constant resident in the neighbourhood”. Jenyns own collection of beetles has been incorporated into the museum’s main collection but they do possess an original glass-covered box of specimens collected and mounted by Darwin, with some labels in his own hand. With its rows of shining beetles meticulously presented, it evokes so vividly that age of curiosity and wonder. Jude Harris *The quotations from Jenyns are taken from his autobiography ‘Chapters in My Life’ which has interesting vignettes of his friendship and discussions with many eminent nineteenth century naturalists and scientists, including Darwin, Yarrell, Broome, Henslow, Hooker, Lowe, Selby and Sedgwick. It was reprinted by the BRLSI in ‘Leonard Jenyns: Darwin’s Lifelong Friend’, along with many of his letters and essays, and is available from the BRLSI office. …………………………………………………………………………………. Darwin’s ErrorThis is one of the parrotfish family, the Globehead parrotfish, and is the actual specimen (photographed at the Natural History Museum, London) that Darwin collected as the Beagle sailed to Tahiti. Darwin reported in his journal that he ‘opened the intestines of several and found them distended with a yellowish calcareous sandy mud ….these fish…. must be very efficient agents in producing the fine white mud which lies at the bottom and on the shores of the lagoon’ (Journal, 6 April 1836). A year later, back in England, he presented a paper to the Geological Society and suggested that the chalk of Europe was produced by the digestive action of these fish and other marine animals which lived by browsing on coral. William Buckland, Professor of Geology at Oxford University, recommended in his review of the paper that before publication ‘the Author be advised to withdraw the passage relating to the origin of chalk as introducing very disputable matter into a paper that is otherwise unexceptionable’. Though Darwin privately considered Buckland a ‘vulgar’ man seeking notoriety, he did withdraw this hypothesis—a sensible move as it was incorrect. It was later established that the enormous layers of chalk laid down during the Cretaceous period were formed by the shells of single-celled calcium-carbonate secreting creatures falling to the sea floor. And not a single parrotfish was implicated in that. Jude Harris |
BRSLI is part of Darwin200, a collaboration of organisations across the UK who are celebrating Darwin's bicentenary with an exciting programme of activities