Volume Thirteen - Pre-Victorian to the Present Day - Remarkable Connections - Darwin, FitzRoy, Hawkshaw & Wedgwood . . . .

Their friendship became strained by Darwin's On the Origin of Species, FitzRoy being a deeply religious man, strongly rejected Darwin's evolutionary ideas and publicly opposed them. FitzRoy's final years were also marked by intense criticism of his weather forecasting, financial difficulties and deteriorating mental health. He took his own life on 30th April 1865.

It would be too simple to attribute his death to his disagreement with Darwin. Their intellectual differences were certainly part of the story, but the surviving evidence points to a much wider combination of personal, professional and financial pressures. Ironically, 1865 was also the year in which Penarth Dock opened bringing us back to the other remarkable connection in this story : John Hawkshaw and Charles Darwin.

	Fitzroy, the Church and a conflict of belief.
	What Darwin concluded within 'On the Origin of the Species (1859)'

But, prior to John Hawkshaw and Charles Darwin, may we reflect for a while on the fact that Robert Fitzroy was the pioneer of the Metrological Office which, back in the days of sailing vessels, to have prior warning of impending storms was often the difference of life or death for so many mariners. Remember 25% of those who went to sea in those days never came home again to that warm welcome and a few beers!