1836 Charles Darwin Home Cambridge

When Charles Darwin returned from his Beagle voyage he came to live at 22 Fitzwilliam Street in Cambridge. He occupied it from the 16th December 1836 to March 1837. He aimed to get away from the social pressures of family in Shrewsbury and the scientific pressures of new contacts in London. He could visit old friends and scientific contacts like Henslow and Sedgewick. He employed Syms Covington (his aid on the Beagle) as a gentleman's manservant and set about organising his thoughts and specimens from the Beagle voyages, often covering all available surfaces with careful piles of notes and letters. Darwin started composing his Beagle voyage volume \Journals and Remarks\" 1839 here, (later to become his famous \"Journal of Researches\"). At the end of the street lay the grand Fitzwilliam Museum. In 2009 the Museum hoisted a huge banner of Darwin for its \"Endless Forms\" exhibition."