‘Majestic’ oak tree that Charles Darwin may have climbed as a boy will be FELLED to make way for the Shrewsbury bypass – as campaigners say it’s a ‘dark day for the environment’

Charles Robert Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, the fifth of six children of wealthy and well-connected parents.

One of his grandfathers was Erasmus Darwin, a physician whose book Zoonomia advanced the radical and highly controversial idea that one species could “mutate” into another. Metamorphosis is what was known as evolution at the time.

In 1825, Charles Darwin studied at the University of Edinburgh, one of the best places in Britain to study science.

It attracted free thinkers with radical views, including, among other things, conversion theories.

Darwin trained as a clergyman at Cambridge in 1827 after abandoning his plans to become a doctor, but he continued his passion for biology.

In 1831, Charles’s mentor recommended he go on a round-the-world voyage on board the HMS Beagle.

Over the next five years, Darwin traveled to five continents collecting specimens while exploring the local geology.

With long periods of doing nothing but thinking and reading, he studied Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology, which had a profound influence.

The voyage also began a life of illness after he became severely seasick.

In 1835, the HMS Beagle stopped for five weeks in the Galapagos Islands, 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador.

There, he studied finches, turtles, and mockingbirds, though not in enough detail to come to any great conclusions.

But he began collecting notes that were quickly accumulating.

Upon returning home in 1838, Darwin showed his specimens to fellow biologists and began writing his travels.

It was then that he began to see how the “conversion” occurred.

It was found that animals that are better suited to their environment live longer and have more young.

Evolution occurred through a process he called “natural selection” although he struggled with the idea because it conflicted with his Christian worldview.

After witnessing his grandfather’s ostracism for his theories, Darwin gathered more evidence while documenting his travels until 1851.

He decided to publish his theory after he began suffering from long bouts of illness.

Some historians suggest that he contracted a tropical disease while others feel that his symptoms were largely psychosomatic, caused by anxiety.

In 1858, Darwin received a letter from Alfred Russel Wallace, an admirer of Darwin’s reading of The Voyage of the Beagle.

Wallace arrived at the theory of natural selection independently and wanted Darwin’s advice on how to publish.

In 1858, Darwin finally came forward and gave Wallace some credit for the idea.

Darwin’s ideas were presented to Britain’s leading natural history body, the Linnean Society.

In 1859, he published his theory of evolution. It would become one of the most important books ever written.

Darwin attracted severe criticism from the church and some of the press. Many people were shaken by the book’s main implication that humans are descended from apes, even though Darwin only hinted at this.

In 1862, Darwin wrote A Warning About His Relatives Having Children, and was already concerned about his own marriage, having married his cousin Emma and lost three of their children and cared for others to illness.

Darwin knew that orchids were less healthy when self-fertilizing, and he was concerned that inbreeding within his family might cause problems.

He worked until his death in 1882. Realizing that his powers were fading, he described his local cemetery as “the sweetest place on earth.”

He was buried in Westminster Abbey.