The Beagle Has Landed! Happy Darwin Day 2024 Darwin’s 215th Birthday

Charles Darwin as a young Victorian gentleman of science, during Voyage of The HMS Beagle, during which he visited the island of St. Helena 1982 Stamp issue 1982. 

It’s Darwin Day today, an international celebration of Darwin’s travels, life  and research.

Happy Birthday Charles Darwin, 215 years young …

What, we ask visiting Year 6 groups of 10 to 11 year olds , is the name of the most famous ship or boat and voyage in the world?

or if its a local school “What is the most famous boat or ship to have sailed into Cornish waters and Falmouth harbour?”  

We get an interesting range of answers to this most famous or important voyage. “Titanic” is a very common answer!  The Apollo mission “Eagle has Landed” is another curious one.

The correct version should of course be “The Beagle Has Landed”! (“One small step for a seasick man, one giant leap for mankind …”)

Darwin / Inheritance and Evolution is still a popular science curriculum topic or theme for Year 6 / Junior Primary visits to the zoo, and it’s especially interesting  with our local  Southwest Britain / Cornish  connections to Darwin and his famous voyage.

Some of the HMS Beagle’s  crew were from the Plymouth  (still a ‘grey port’ or Royal Navy port) and Cornwall area.

He started his HMS Beagle voyage in Plymouth in 1831 and arrived home on October 1836 in Falmouth.

Plaque marking spot of Darwin’s landfall from HMS Beagle voyage, October 2 1836 in Falmouth and his departure home through Cornwall and Devon back to Shrewsbury by coach.

This is still marked in Falmouth with the 2009 ‘landfall’ plaque from the Darwin 200 celebrations. One object we mention to school groups or children to look out for when shopping or visiting in Falmouth.

Limited Edition Print. 'Beagle in the Bay, Falmouth' by Cornish Artist John Dyer. Cornwall Art Gallery Print

Exciting to think that the tiny little HMS Beagle once docked in Falmouth (now home to the many boats of the National Maritime Museum Cornwall) and Darwin travelled home through the wild landscapes of Cornwall.

In my Darwin, Inheritance and Evolution year 6 talks last week at the zoo, I used as a ‘memory prompt’ one of my last few copies of the stamp book that Sandie Robb at RZSS and I put together back in Darwin 200 year in 2009. We tend to future focus our talk to think about how Darwin’s ideas are useful to zoo keepers today working in conservation.

I am impressed by the amount of knowledge primary children have ‘soaked up’ about polar explorers like Shackleton or Scott, fossil hunters like Mary Anning  or travelling scientists like Darwin. The biographical approach of the life story or adventures seems to work well and there are now many colourful children’s books out there for home education or classroom projects.

Darwin used the chance to study ‘live’ animal behaviour in animal collections in scientific zoos like ZSL London Zoo and the ‘dead zoo’ of museums extensively in his research. We mention this to school groups visiting today are following that tradition and wonder what Darwin would make of a modern zoo if he returned to wander around Edinburgh Zoo, or Newquay Zoo or London Zoo today.

Always interesting, the questions that we are asked about Darwin and animals and zoos by groups at the end of a mini-session chat over by an animal enclosure!

Charles Darwin the old Victorian gentleman of science, Mauritius –  Darwin linked island 1982 stamps.

Best wishes for Darwin Day however you celebrate  Darwin’s life, travels and writing … 

RZSS Edinburgh Zoo https://www.edinburghzoo.org.uk/education/ 

Newquay Zoo https://www.newquayzoo.org.uk/wild-learning/

**** February 2024 – I have a last few couple of copies of the Darwin stamp book available post free to schools or other zoos (UK only) – contact me if interested by email via our website or our Newquay Zoo Education webpage. ****

Blog posted by Mark Norris, Newquay Zoo Education Department on 12 February 2024

Happy 214th Birthday Charles Darwin!

We have missed wishing Charles Darwin a Happy Birthday at Newquay Zoo and on this blog over the last year or two on February 12th due to all the disruption of Covid.

This year our Schools Go Free in 23 offer, designed to celebrate another birthday, that of our sister zoo Paignton Zoo as part of Wild Planet Trust,  has seen lots of educational visits to Newquay Zoo and Paignton Zoo.

Interestingly we have had a fair number of requests from schools for ‘mini session’ chats at an enclosure (with time for  questions) for Darwin and Evolution (usually Year 6 or KS2). Darwin was no stranger to zoos such as London Zoo, which were a valuable resource of living animals for him to observe as he patiently collected information towards the Origin of Species, Descent of Man and his many other books.

We usually talk a bit about how Darwin’s ideas and methods inform what we do as scientists, zoologists and zoo keepers in zoos today to protect endangered animals.

Whilst our temporary  Darwin Room / Explorer’s classroom display (see birthday post in 2019) is sadly no more, now that our Education building is being replaced by a newer incarnation, it’s good to see that interesting topics like Dinosaurs and Darwin  still ignite the questioning minds of another generation of young scientists and citizens.

Condensing Darwin’s life and the story of how he worked out his theory of Evolution and Natural Selection into 20+ minutes is a challenge, but one which has been helped by the Darwin in Stamps booklet that Sandie Robb at RZSS Edinburgh Zoo and I wrote back in bicentenary year of 2009.

Charles Darwin the young Victorian gentleman of science, before the famous beard was established – image taken from a portrait sketch as a young man in the late 1830s around the time of his marriage to Emma Wedgewood and shortly after his return in 1836 from the Voyage of The HMS Beagle, during which he visited the island of St. Helena. Stamp issue 1982, marking 100 years since his death. An attractive border showing ‘biodiversity’ links this portrait set of Darwin 1982 (Darwin’s death centenary) island issue stamps.

Apparently Darwin features on more stamp issues than any other person who is not a member of a Royal family like Queen Victoria or Queen Elizabeth II.

I carry a copy of the Darwin in Stamps booklet with me during these school talks to show some of the beautiful stamps about Darwin and his animal discoveries and travels. It’s proved a great summary of his life, travels and  his BIG QUESTIONS about life, especially useful as much of our Darwin materials over the last few months have been packed away with our fossils in a shipping container during our zoo classroom move / rebuild.

I found about 15 to 20 unclaimed copies of this publication during the rebuild. This means  for a limited period I will be able to offer again a class library copy free to a few more visiting schools studying this fascinating topic.

So happy birthday Charles Darwin for the 12th of February today – celebrated all over the world – and throughout this centenary year to our Wild Planet Trust sister zoo, Paignton Zoo, founded by Herbert Whitley in 1923. I’m sure the two men would have had lots of animal observations in common to talk about, especially  their shared interest in pigeon breeds and breeding.

Darwin Day Wikipedia entry

International Darwin Day website

Blog posted by Mark Norris, Newquay Zoo Education Department, Cornwall, UK, 12 February 2023. All views my own.

Beautiful Darwin Initiative 2017 Jersey Zoo stamps

 

 

https://darwininitiativeuk.wordpress.com/2017/10/10/darwin-initiatives-25th-anniversary-celebrated-on-jersey-stamps/

Welcome Home Charles Darwin Falmouth 2nd October 1836

Plaque marking spot of Darwin’s landfall from HMS Beagle voyage, Oct 2 1836 in Falmouth and his departure home by coach.

180 years ago Charles Darwin arrived back in Falmouth aboard the HMS Beagle, after 5 years away at sea.

https://wordpress.com/post/darwin200stampzoo.wordpress.com/389

It hardly seems 10 years since I was taking photos in Falmouth and Flushing harbour using a tiny Britain’s 54mm Darwin figure and a model ship to publicise what was the forthcoming Darwin 200 celebration in 2009. (In fact I had started working on the project at Newquay Zoo ten years beforehand in 1996 on the 160th anniversary.)

You can read more about Darwin 200, his life in stamps and his work on the previous blogposts.

 

 

 

Heading home aboard HMS Beagle 180 years ago

Charles Darwin first day cover Falklands 1982

180 years ago a 26 year old young Englishman prepares for the final part of his journey home on one of the most impressive round the world “gap years” in history.

August 17 1836 aboard HMS Beagle, a young Charles Darwin prepares to  leave South America for the last time. Along with the Captain Fitzroy and crew of HMS Beagle, they were  heading home for the first time after 5 years away.

He arrived in Falmouth harbour in Cornwall on HMS Beagle on October 2 1836.

Plaque marking spot of Darwin’s landfall from HMS Beagle voyage, Oct 2 1836 in Falmouth and his departure home by coach. Erected during the Darwin Bicentenary 2009.

Unlike Fitzroy and the Royal Navy crew of HMS Beagle, the often seasick Darwin would never go to sea or leave Britain again.

Read more of our past blogposts by Sandie Robb at RZSS Edinburgh Zoo and Mark Norris at Newquay Zoo for more about Darwin’s life and work, his life commemorated in postage stamps, the 200th Birthday celebrations in 2009, Alfred Russel Wallace, using stamps in schools or zoos as a teaching resource and celebrating many things Victorian!

Blog posted by Mark Norris, Newquay Zoo – Darwin Stamp Zoo blog, 17 August 2016

Queen Elizabeth 2nd overtakes Queen Victoria as UK longest reigning monarch

Today 9th September 2015 Queen Elizabeth 2nd becomes Britain’s longest-reigning monarch (1952-2015),  when she passes the record set by her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria (1837-1901).

 1990 Royal Mail double header.

The Queen will have reigned for 63 years and seven months – an amazing  23,226 days!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34177107

Congratulations, Ma’am!

This has led to a range of postal commemoratives such as this Isle of Man stamp first day cover from the Westminster Collection:

2015 Postal 9.9.15 commemorative of the Queen’s longest reign.

Inspiration for Primary History Teaching – Two Queens

The different reign of the two queens is covered in some units based on the Primary History National Curriculum such as Cornwall Learning’s Inspire Curriculum Year 2 National Celebration Two Queens :  http://theinspirecurriculum.co.uk/product/national-celebration

Inspire Curriculum’s Year 2 interesting Two Queens National Celebration unit looking at Victorians and today.

There is a similar Curriculum map for Year 6 A Voyage of Discovery covering Charles Darwin’s voyages and the Victorians.

This is an exciting opportunity to combine Science and History (of Science) and Geography (and RE)  which should be interesting to explore in the classroom and at zoo workshops or offsites. We had great fun exploring these topics in schools and at the zoo and galleries in Darwin 200 Bicentenary Year 2009:

We also saw an interesting postal related unit  for Year 1 called Posting and Places. This involves letter and postcard writing (and led to a flurry of enquiries and visit requests about penguins at Newquay Zoo last Spring). Maybe stamp design could creep in somewhere?

So an amazing history record by Queen Victoria and some great opportunities to explore topics in the classroom and enjoy  Victorians, stamps and postal history as learning opportunities and fascinating hobby learning.

Darwin’s Grandson killed in the WW1 trenches and WW1 centenary stamps

Cross-posting from another project blog, sadly 24th April 2015 marks the centenary of the death of Erasmus, one of Darwin’s grandsons, in the trenches of WW1. You can read more of his story on the blog post below:

Erasmus Darwin IV (Source: Wikipedia) died 24 April 1915, Ypres.

https://worldwarzoogardener1939.wordpress.com/2015/04/23/a-trench-dead-darwin-24-april-1915/

WW1 Remembered in stamps

Royal Mail WW1 stamp set.

The WW1 centenary has been widely marked by the issue of stamps and online exhibitions:

http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/remembrance/ww1-centenary/ww1-commemorative-stamps

A fantastic and massive KS1 – KS3 teaching resource to download http://teacherspost.co.uk/the-last-post/

http://www.postalheritage.org.uk/explore/history/firstworldwar/

https://postalheritage.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/the-post-office-in-the-first-world-war/

A fact picked up from Horrible Histories is confirmed on the Postal Heritage website, that the Post Office installed one of the largest temporary wooden buildings in the world at the time. It was in Regent’s Park, next to the ZSL London Zoo where Drawin once strode,  to handle forces mail, within the sound of monkey whoops and wolf howls:

With the onset of trench warfare, all mails bound for troops on the Western Front were sorted at the London Home Depot by the end of 1914. Covering five acres of Regents Park, this was said to be the largest wooden structure in the world employing over 2,500 mostly female staff by 1918. During the war the Home Depot handled a staggering 2 billion letters and 114 million parcels (Postal Heritage website, First World War section)

The wartime postal service is mentioned in this BBC article:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25934407

The Post Office even had its own regiment, The Post Office Rifles.  A 2015 Royal Mail pack of stamps pack commemorates the Post Office Rifles on the centenary of their arrival in France on 18th March 1915.

http://shop.royalmail.com/issue-by-issue/the-first-world-war-1914-souvenirs/icat/thegreatwar1914&view=&bklist=icat,7,cat110,con,cat111,stampslandingpage,cat158,thegreatwar1914

The 8th (City of London) Battalion, The London Regiment (Post Office Rifles)  lost 1,800 killed and 4,500 men wounded by the end of the War.

Remembered …

Only a few days from home, 175 years ago: Darwin’s landfall, Falmouth, October 2nd 1836

On this day 175 years ago, Charles Darwin was close to ending his world-changing 5 year journey round the world  Only a few days away from landfall and harbour in Falmouth on October 2nd 1836 and  a few days coach journey home away from his family in Shrewsbury.

Plaque marking spot of Darwin's landfall from HMS Beagle voyage, Oct 2 1836 in Falmouth and his departure home by coach.

A plaque now marks the place where Darwin made landfall that evening in Falmouth, arranged by Falmouth Town Council and Falmouth Art Gallery, during the Darwin 200 celebrations .

We still have  a few copies available to schools free of our Darwin stamp book – contact Sandie Robb at Edinburgh Zoo or Mark Norris at Newquay Zoo.  

A new Darwin stamp book for 2011

Many of the new 175th anniversary stamps issued to celebrate Darwin’s journey can be found in Barry Floyd’s new book Chrles Darwin His Life Through Commemorative Stamps (2011) , available through Traveller’s Tree Thematic Services, 30 Watch Bell Street, Rye, E. Sussex, TN31 7HB, UK Priced £15 + £2 P&P (UK). £5 P&P overseas Cheques in sterling to B N Floyd.

Look out in 2012 for events and publications celebrating Edward Lear’s bicentenary.  See the Blog of Bosh and other websites including www.nonsenselit.org

See our previous blog entry on Lear

https://darwin200stampzoo.wordpress.com/2009/12/03/the-victorians-are-not-dead-and-gone-celebrating-the-big-and-bearded-victorian-icons-from-darwin-to-lear-a-future-festival-of-nonsense/

Famous footsteps, incredible journeys: Happy New Darwin Anniversary Year 2011 – 175 years on, and a bit more of our Victorian Time Safari …

It’s 175 years this year since Charles Darwin returned to Britain at the end of his five-year voyage, just as the Victorian period was beginning. He had spent his last Christmas 1835 away from home and was heading back in HMS Beagle for the final part of his epic voyage of discovery. He still had much of Australia, New Zealand, Keeling Islands, Mauritius, Cape Town in South Africa, St. Helena, Ascension Island and Brazil (again) to visit before reaching Britain. Many of these countries, especially the islands, mark the anniversary of his famous visit with postage stamps.

By October 2nd, 1836 he would be back on land in Falmouth and heading home by mail coach

Plaque marking spot of Darwin's landfall from HMS Beagle voyage, Oct 2 1836 in Falmouth and his departure home by coach.

A plaque set up by Falmouth Town Council and Falmouth Art Gallery marks the point where he made landfall in Falmouth and waited for the mail coach home. Within a year, a new Queen would be on the throne and a new era of scientific, agricultural and technological revolution begun. Lots of developments had happened in technology and society whilst he had been away, not least the beginnings of railway mania, so that the very coach he travelled on was soon to become obsolete as public transport within his lifetime.

The penny post and Penny Black stamp were only a few years aways in 1840. By the time he died in 1882, telegraph communication was widespread and telephones in their infancy. The first petrol engine vehicles were in development. Cinema experiments were beginning. Iron and steam had replaced wood and sail in modern ships. Darwin lived through an amazing century, which set the pace for the developments since.

There’s a 2009 news story and photos about the Darwin’s landfall plaque in Falmouth  http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/news/falmouth/Plaque-marks-Darwin-landfall/article-1636415-detail/article.html

Sadly since this was put up, Brian Stewart the curator of Falmouth Art Gallery has sadly died in December 2010, much missed by  the Newquay Zoo staff with whom he worked extensively on Darwin 200 activities. Many tributes can be read to his work in the Falmouth Packet newspaper. Newquay Zoo staff were already planning a follow-up to Darwin 200 based around nonsense poet and animal painter Edward Lear’s bicentenary in May 2012.    

Darwin is not the only eminent Victorian to have his landing-place marked in Cornwall. We’ve included it as part of our Victorian Time Safari, looking at the legacy of Darwin’s Victorian times around us. What can you see in your village, town or city from Victorian times?

We spotted this unusual footprint when arriving by boat ferry at St. Michael’s Mount in Cornwall, that magical castle in the sea that Darwin would have passed on his route into Falmouth just up the coast.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert 's royal visit marked by bronze plaque near her 'footstep' at St. Michaels' Mount, Cornwall (Photo: Mark Norris, Newquay Zoo)

Nearby, Truro station has all the ornate ironwork of a Victorian station still, including its VR Victorian post box. Nearby, Truro station has all the ornate ironwork of a Victorian station still, including its VR Victorian post box. On a recent Dublin trip, we saw a Victorian explorer commemorated not in stamps but in a lifesize bronze statue. What Victorain memorials or  inventions can you find in your area?

Ornate Victorian ironwork, Truro rail station, Cornwall, 2010Ornate decorative Victorian ironwork, Truro rail station, Cornwall, 2010Victorian statue of explorer / surgeon TH Parke from Stanley's expeditions in Africa, outside Dublin Natural History Museum

Wallace – the alternative Darwin – gets a postage stamp or two at last!!

Alfred Russel Wallace on postage stamps at last! http://wallacefund.info/first-ever-postage-stamps-featuring-alfred-russel-wallace-are-published

George Beccaloni left a very excited message on the Alfred Russel Wallace website  about the 2009 issue by Democratic Republic of São Tomé and Príncipe (in Africa) of Wallace stamps – at last!

You might have read earlier Sandie’s jubilant blog entry about the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society postage stamps from the Royal Mail featuring Wallace  http://http://royalsociety.org/Royal-Society-350th-anniversary-stamps/ 

Interesting to compare the two different designs!

The centenary of Wallace’s death in 1913 is due soon in 2013 and the Wallace Fund website blog has more details about how this is being marked around the world. There is also a short biography of this amazing man and many links.

These very Darwin style portrait and dinosaur stamps compare well with some of the Darwin 200 and other anniversary issues shown in our Charles Darwin: A Life In Stamps book, published in 2009. Copies are still available to schools (free) and collectors (small charge, see earlier blog).  The stamps should,  as George notes,   appeal to dinosaur stamp collectors as much as Darwin realted stamp collectors.  

 http://wallacefund.info/first-ever-postage-stamps-featuring-alfred-russel-wallace-are-published

His book The Malay Archipeligo has never been out of print since its publication, much like Darwin’s Voyage of The Beagle, another classic of  Victorian travel writing.

Wallace’s travels took him across Indonesia including to Papua New Guinea where our Black Tree Monitors are from and Sulawesi, an Indonesian island,  home to Sulawesi Macaque monkeys that are now critically endangered – you can see our group at Newquay Zoo through our webcam http://www.newquayzoo.org.uk/conservation/sulawesi-crested-black-macaques.htm, part of our support for Selamatkan Yaki (Protect The Macaque! in Bahasan Indonesian).

We’ll keep you posted on celebartions for Wallace 2013, Darwin 2011 and Edward Lear 2012 on the blog – watch this space.