The verge of the world

In 1927, the house and garden where Charles Darwin lived for nearly 40 years were saved for the nation as a monument to his research and ideas. John Goodall investigates

- John Goodall

Down House, Kent In the care of English Heritage

AT 8.30 pm on August 31, 1927, the membership of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) gathered in the auditorium of the Majestic Theatre in Leeds for the inaugural meeting of its annual conference. After a few preliminary formalities, the new president of the association, the anatomist Prof Sir Arthur Keith—who assumed his role from no less a figure than the Prince of Wales—stepped up to the podium to deliver an address entitled ‘Darwin’s Theory of Man’s Descent as it stands today’.

Sir Arthur explained that, 69 years before in 1858, when the BAAS had previously met in Leeds, its then president had used his address to argue that, although Man had clearly existed on earth for much longer than Biblical chronology suggested, it was absurd to argue that he was ‘merely a transmuted ape’. That lecture, Sir Arthur suggested, was the first salvo in a controversy that would fundamentally change perceptions of the origins of man; what he characterised intellectually as one of the ‘marvels of the 19th century’.