Charles Robert Darwin tested 10^th of 178 among the bachelors of the Cambridge University’s Christ’s College class of 1832. Many classmates went on to study theology and become clergymen. Charles Darwin became the father of modern evolutionary biology.

Born into a respected and accomplished family in Shrewsbury, England on February 12, 1809, Charles' father and grandfather were esteemed physicians. His mother was a daughter of the entrepreneurial Josiah Wedgewood, who earned business success and membership in the prestigious Royal Society by successfully measuring temperature in kilns.

Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802), Charles grandfather, was one of 18^th century England’s leading intellectuals. Erasmus became an internationally famous naturalist and author after abandoning medicine for science and writing. A prominent proponent of transmutation (the belief that organisms change over time), his long, well-received poem, Zooonia, or the Laws of Organic Life, discussed the concept of evolution, foreshadowing the work of his grandson. Both Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgewood participated in the “Lunar Society,” a monthly gathering of scientists, inventors, and intellectuals who supported radical ideas such as free markets and opposition to the great control the Anglican Church held over intellectual life. Erasmus’ apparently led a family environment placing great value on the questioning of established ideals.

Robert Darwin, Charles father, was a successful physician who facilitated the funding and launch of his son's career. Charles mother was a Unitarian who died when Charles was only eight, leaving him few memories. After her death, Charles entered a local school, of whose curriculum he was not complimentary. In 1825 at age sixteen, he entered Edinburgh University to study medicine. He found medicine uninteresting, the sight of blood unpleasant, and the practice of amputation without anesthetic untenable. He refused to complete his studies in medicine and returned to Shrewsbury, beginning a process of self-education as a naturalist that would found his career. In 1827, Darwin gave his first talk at the Plinian Society, a science club that emphasized the study of nature over ideas of the supernatural.

In 1828, Charles enrolled in Christ’s College of Cambridge University, apparently believing a career as an Anglican clergyman would allow him time to study nature in terms of God’s creative powers. However, John Hershel's A preliminary discourse on the study of natural philosophy, which suggested scientific methods and discussed the possible future of scientific knowledge, gave Darwin a “burning zeal” to contribute to scientific discovery.

After graduation, Darwin won an unpaid position as ship’s naturalist on a refitted Royal Navy ship set to sail around the world. During the voyage of the HMS Beagle (27 December 1831 to October 2, 1836), Darwin collected observational and physical evidence that finally convinced first him, and later the scientific world, that the concept of evolution through means of natural selection is the guiding principle through which organisms change over time.

Darwin's “big book” On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection (1859) was published in six editions during his lifetime. He also published biographical sketches, works on animal breeding, barnacles, emotions, fertilization, insectivorous plants, geology, mold, and The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871) in which the word “evolution” first appears in his writings.

Charles Darwin died on April 19, 1882, perhaps unaware that history would place him among the giants of scientific discovery.