1 CHARLES DARWIN IN THE FALKLAND ISLANDS, 1833 & 1834

naturalist on board gazed for the first time on the shores of the Falkland Islands. Charles Darwin, for it was he, was 24 years old and this was the first of two visits that he would make to the islands. He had been born in Shrewsbury on 12 February 1809 and was fresh from a theological education at Cambridge University. His experiences during the Beagle’s round-the-world voyage changed his life and laid the foundation for the revolutionary work on evolution that has made him a household name. The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection was explosive stuff and Darwin, mindful of its likely impact and reception by the religious establishment, delayed publication for years – until he was finally forced into action by the intimation of similar views by Alfred Russel Wallace. 2009 marks 150 years since publication of The Origin of Species, 200 years since the birth of Darwin, but controversy continues with various creation myths or pseudo-scientific notions of “intelligent design ” still preferred by many of the world’s religious faithful to the Darwinian theory of evolution driven by natural selection. Perhaps it is the enduring controversy that has ensured Darwin’s scientific pre-eminence. If you asked anyone, anywhere, to name a few famous scientists it’s a fair bet that they would come up with Charles Darwin (Figure 1). But very few would be aware of his Falklands connection. Instead, they would probably link him with the Galapagos Islands, visited much later in the Beagle’s voyage and often credited as providing the spark that ignited Darwin’s theory of evolution. There will be many international events celebrating the 2009 anniversaries, with one contribution from th