“A most glorious country”: Charles Darwin and North Wales, especially his 1831 geological tour

Abstract

Darwin's tour with Adam Sedgwick in 1831, the last of some 14 Welsh visits before the Beagle voyage, divides into three periods: a week, mostly with Sedgwick, from 5 August; a middle period ending by 20 August, when Sedgwick left Anglesey; and a final period during which Darwin spent some days in Barmouth, reaching Shrewsbury on 29 August. His activities are well documented, for the first period, through both men's geological notes and, for the last, in the journal of the Lowe brothers (showing Darwin reaching Barmouth from Ffestiniog on 23 August and parting from Robert Lowe on 29 August). For the middle period the circumstantial evidence points to Anglesey: whether Darwin's writings show any first hand knowledge of the island needs further examination. Robert Lowe was one of Darwin's most gifted contemporaries; his „early hero-worship” enhances the conventional picture of Darwin on the eve of the voyage. After his return to North Wales in 1842, to investigate the effects of glacial action, Darwin saw the tour as illustrating the futility of observations outside of any adequate theoretical framework.

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