Darwin's Mentor: John Stevens Henslow, 1796-1861

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Cambridge University Press, Sep 13, 2001 - Biography & Autobiography - 338 pages
John Stevens Henslow is known for his formative influence on Charles Darwin, who described their meeting as the one circumstance "which influenced my career more than any other." A Professor of Botany at Cambridge University, Henslow was Darwin's teacher and eventual life-long friend, but what of the man himself? In this new biography, much previously unpublished material has been carefully gathered to produce a rounded picture of a remarkable academic and Victorian philanthropist. The time in 1829-31, when Darwin "walked with Henslow" in and around Cambridge, was followed directly by Darwin's voyage around the world. The gradually changing relationship between teacher and pupil over the course of time is revealed through their correspondence, illuminating a remarkable friendship that persisted, in spite of Darwin's eventual atheism and Henslow's never-failing liberal Christian belief, to the end of Henslow's life.
 

Contents

Family background growing up in Kent and London
3
Cambridge
9
The young Henslow at Cambridge
11
Henslow men who influenced him at Cambridge
22
Harriet
38
The young Professor
49
Educating Charles Darwin and others
78
The middle years politics policing and publication
108
The Rector
194
The later years
220
Epilogue
253
Genealogical tables
261
Chronology
264
Dramatis Personae
271
Eponymous taxa
285
Local botanical records
289

The Botanic Garden Old and New
128
A Liberal Churchman
155
Hitcham
175
Early years as Rector of Hitcham
177
Endnotes
293
Bibliography
309
Index
331
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