I continue the series of the daily habits of important historic and contemporary figures with Charles Darwin. He was an English naturalist and geologist who contributed to the science of evolution by establishing that all species of life on Earth descend from common ancestors. He lived between 1809 and 1882.
My aim with this series is to focus on the daily habits of big achievers, which is why I will not pay particular attention to familiarizing you with all aspects of their lives. To learn more about Charles Darwin, visit Wikipedia and work your way from there.
Earlier in this series:
1. A day in the Life of Nikola Tesla
2. A day in the Life of Benjamin Franklin
3. A day in the Life of Thomas Edison
4. A day in the Life of Albert Einstein
The Daily Habits of Charles Darwin
Before breaking down Darwin's schedule by the hour, I'll have to give you a bit of context.
At age 33, in 1842 he moved from London to the countryside, in an isolated village in Kent. At Down House, a former parsonage (church house given to a clergy member), Darwin would live and work for the rest of his life. Unlike London, this was, as he put it: 'the extreme edge of world'.
That's like my kind of 'extreme edge'...
Darwin would concentrate his days around bursts of work interrupted by: walks, naps and reading.
08:00 A.M. First (and best) block of work, immediately after a short morning walk and breakfast.
09:30 A.M. See his wife Emma in the drawing room. They would read the correspondence received after which Emma would keep reading aloud from a novel.
10:30 A.M. Second block of work, until around noon.
Darwin would then take his fox terrier and do the main walk of the day.
He stopped at the greenhouse first, then made a certain number of laps along the “Sandwalk,” striking his iron-shod walking stick rhythmically against the gravel path as he went. Lunch with the family followed. Darwin usually drank a small amount of wine with the meal, which he enjoyed, but very carefully—he had a fear of drunkenness, and claimed to have only ever once been tipsy in his life, while he was a student at Cambridge. Mason Currey - Daily Rituals
Post Lunch - 4:00 P.M.
- read the newspaper n the drawing-room sofa
- write letters by the fire in a horsehair chair
At 3 P.M. he would go and rest in the bedroom. Emma would continue reading aloud from her novel, while Darwin would lie on the sofa with a cigarette. He would often fall asleep.
4 P.M. Walk for half an hour, then work for another hour.
5:30 P.M. Back in the drawing room for novel reading. Then, cigarette upstairs.
This would be followed by dinner, conversations with guests on occasion (he did not enjoy them), and sometimes games of backgammon in the drawing room.
Darwin would then read from a scientific book. He would often lie on the sofa and listen to Emma playing the piano in the drawing room.
It seems like the drawing room was the scene for a lot of action in Darwin's daily existence.
10 P.M. Leaving the drawing room to rest.
Thanks to Mason Currey for researching Darwin's life in such great detail.
Ending Thoughts
This was the daily routine of Charles Darwin for about 40 years, with very few exceptions, such as summer holidays and visits to relatives - which he did not enjoy. As Currey reports:
"Despite his seclusion and constant ill health, however, Darwin was content at Down House, surrounded by his family—he and Emma would eventually have ten children—and his work, which seemed to strip the years away from him even as it frequently brought him to the brink of exhaustion. Francis Darwin recalls that his father’s slow, labored movements about the house stood in stark contrast to his demeanor during an experiment—then his actions became quick and certain, characterized by a “kind of restrained eagerness. He always gave one the impression of working with pleasure, and not with any drag.”"
I'll leave you with a quote from The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin:
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