The British Society for the History of Science

Who Was the Beagle's Naturalist? Author(s): Jacob W. Gruber Source: The British Journal for the History of Science, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Jun., 1969), pp. 266-282 Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The British Society for the History of Science Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4025475 Accessed: 19/05/2010 15:17
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=cup. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Cambridge University Press and The British Society for the History of Science are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The British Journal for the History of Science.

http://www.jstor.org

WHO WAS THE BEAGLE'S

By JACOBW.

NATURALIST?

GRUBER

S o great has been the impact of Darwinian evolution upon contemporary thought that even the tiniest aspect of Darwin's own history assumes importance as a datum in the history of those ideas which provide the ideological base of the contemporary world. In all of the accounts of the intellectual journey which led to the formulation of that theory, a great deal of stress is placed upon the Beagle voyage, that prolonged period of initiation from which the young Darwin returned, the sober-and too often in later accounts, sombre-naturalist, scientifically seasoned by his experiences with a world observed but still unexplained and hardly known. The traditional outlines of the story have been repeated over and over again: the outfitting of the Beagle for its surveying responsibilities; Fitzroy's proposal that "some well-educated and scientific person should be sought for who would willingly share such accommodations as I had to offer, in order to profit by the opportunity of visiting distant countries yet little known";' Henslow's recommendation of his friend and student Darwin; the parental refusal; and, finally, the permission granted.2 In the retelling, in the almost mystical affect attached to the Beagle voyage and to Darwin's participation, the association of the inexperienced youth with the Beagle has become a fixed point in intellectual history. The purpose of this paper is twofold: it is to suggest some general factors which contributed to the particular activities of science and scientists in one historical period and, more particularly, to view one small incident associated with Darwin's voyage within that frame of reference. The details of that incident demonstrate, I believe, that Darwin was not, in fact, the only naturalist to the Beagle; that he was a kind of functional "supercargo" whose ultimate contributions far exceeded any prior expectations; and that the position of naturalist was initially filled, and probably officially, by the expedition's surgeon, Robert McCormick who, in assuming the position, was acting within a developing tradition of governmentally sponsored scientific research. McCormick's case is an interesting one, for he is hardly mentioned in any of the Beagle accounts and is never mentioned as naturalist. Lloyd and Coulter in their brief account of the naturalist tradition within the Royal Navy mention a McCormick as surgeon of the Beagle, but only in a passing reference to Darwin's own participation in that
and of Voyages His Majesty'sShips Adventure of the Surveying I Robert Fitzroy, R.N., Narrative Expedition,I83I-36 (London, of theyear I826 and I1836, Vol. II: Proceedings theSecond Beagle between I839), p- i8. 2 See particularly Nora Barlow (ed.), CharlesDarwin and the Voyage the Beagle (London, of Darwin and Henslow: The Growthof an Idea (Berkeley and Los Angeles, U. of California Press, I967) in which she publishes the whole of the extant Darwin-Henslow Correspondence.
THE BRITISH JOURNAL FOR THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE VOL. 4 NO. I5 (i969)
I945);

Darwin, I809-I882 of The Autobiography Charles

(London, I958); and, most recently

Who was the Beagle's Naturalist?

267

voyage: "It was fortunate for such a shy character as Darwin's", they write, "that the senior surgeon, McCormick, left the ship once she had crossed the Atlantic, for the latter was an ill-tempered person."3 The context of this passage is such as to suggest that the McCormick of the Beagle was regarded as a surgeon other than the Robert McCormick whose contributions as a naval surgeon to polar research are more specifically described in a later passage.4 Indeed, in Keevil's sympathetic biographical treatment of McCormick,s no mention is made of his association with the Beagle, although Keevil emphasized McCormick's zeal for natural history, his affinity for and empathy with the tradition of the great surgeon naturalists of the eighteenth century, and the persistence of his efforts to associate himself with scientific expeditions sponsored by the Admiralty. In fact, following McCormick's own recollections in documentation of his growing dispute witn the Medical Department, Keevil writes that in I830 an "application to join a scientific voyage of discovery was refused; but McCormick attributed this reverse to lack of influence and interest. In the summer of I83I a ten gun brig at Plymouth once more became his home ... Six months later the brig sailed for South America and for a brief space McCormick faded from the view of the Medical Department ... By April, I832, McCormick was on his way back . . . behind his plea of ill-health lay his captain's refusal to let him go ashore in pursuit of natural history."6 The unnamed "ten gun brig" was, of course, the Beagle; and the absence of such an identification by Keevil in the face of the importance of the Beagle voyage for the development of natural history, suggests that Keevil himself did not make the identification.7 This curious lack of association between McCormick and the Beagle follows McCormick's own recollections; for in his own bitter account of his life of frustration in the Royal Navy8 written almost at the end of his life, he never mentions the Beagle by name although he recounts experiences which can only be associated with its voyage which Darwin was to make so famous.
Christopher Lloyd and Jack L. S. Coulter, Medicine and the Navy, I200-I900, VOl. iv, (Edinburgh and London, E. & S. Livingstone, I963), p. 74. Per contra,see Darwin's view noted below. 4 Ibid., pp. 77-78. 5 J. J. Keevil, "Robert McCormick, R.N., The Stormy Petrel of Naval Medicine," Journal of the Royal Naval MAledical Service,xxix (I943), 36-62. 6 Ibid., p. 42. 7 Six years later, in an article on Benjamin Bynoe ("Benjamin Bynoe (I804-I868), Surgeon of H.A.S. Beagle", Journal of the Royal Naval Medical Service, xxxv (I949), 25I-268), Keevil notes that Bynoe on the Beagle "found himself serving under Surgeon Robert McCormick, a man already known for his ill-humour and petulance" (p. 253). And he notes his association with Darwin as described by the latter. Except for a bibliographic reference, however, to his earlier article on McCormick, there is no indication that the two men were in fact the same person. In any case, by I949, as in the account by Lloyd and Coulter in I963, McCormick's difficulties aboard the Beagleare ascribed to the imperfections of his own character and there is no suggestion that he was either interested in or engaged in natural history pursuits. 8 Robert McCormick, Voyages Discovery the Arcticand Antarctic of in Seas and Roundthe World, 2 vols. (London, I884).
3

I815-1900

268

JACOB

W.

GRUBER

McCormick's connection with the Beagle is documented by both the Fitzroy and the Darwin accounts of the voyage. He is listed by Fitzroy9 as surgeon at the Beagle's departure from Plymouth; and Fitzroy notes later that "In April I832, Mr. Mac-Cormick and Mr. Derbishire returned to England. Mr. Bynoe (the assistant surgeon) was appointed to act as surgeon."Io Although Darwin rarely mentions his Beagle companions, his account provides some additional light on the circumstances surrounding McCormick's departure from the Beagle. In addition to two references to short trips of exploration with McCormick during the Beagle's visit to Cape Verde Islands,", he writes in his Diary on 24 April I832 at Rio de Janeiro: "Returned to Beagle. During my absence several political changes have taken place in our little world. Mr. Maccormick has been invalided, and goes to England by the Tyne."'2 On the following day, he wrote to his sister: "I had sealed up the first letter, all ready to be sent off during my absence: but no good opportunity occurred, and so it and this will go together. I take the opportunity of MacCormick returning to England, being invalided, i.e. being disagreeable to the Captain and Wickham. He is no IOSS."I3 Although it is possible that Darwin's evaluation was correct, it may well have been influenced by an incipient and probably unrecognized hostility between the two men which flowed from a rivalry, one of whose sources was the anomalous nature of Darwin's position as the Captain's guest. Darwin's very presence called into question the competence of McCormick as a naturalist and led to an inevitable conflict of role. That McCormick could have conceived himself as the Beagle's naturalist and may have had some official sanction to support him is suggested by three lines of evidence: (i) tradition of the naval surgeon as naturalist; (2) McCormick's own training which he felt qualified him for a naturalist's position; and (3) a letter to McCormick from Robert Jameson which implies that McCormick was to be responsible for observations in natural history during the Beagle's voyage.
9 Fitzroy, op. cit. (i),
IO

p. I 9.

Ibid., p. 20. Nora Barlow (ed.), CharlesDarwin's Diary of the Voyageof HI.M.S. Beagle (Cambridge, II 1934), PP. 26, 28. 12 Ibid., pp. 57-58; McCormick's name is variously spelled; in the few letters from him to Richard Owen in the Owen Collection of the British Museum of Natural History, he signs himself "R. M'Cormick". I3 Barlow, Op.Cit. (2), 1945, p. 64; see also, a similar comment in Darwin to Henslow, I8 May I832, in Barlow, Op. (2), I967, p. 56. A few days after reaching Rio dejaneiro, Darwin Cit. accepted the invitation of an Englishman to visit his estate in the interior. The short trip lasted for a little over two weeks and was Darwin's first extended "naturalising" trip on the Beagle voyage (Charles Darwin, journal of Researches .. London, n.d., pp. 38-45). It was during this . absence, that the difficulties between McCormick and Fitzroy and Wickham developed. It is possible, although highly conjectural in the absence of any other information, that that excursion by Darwin precipitated the question of who was naturalist, a question which required no clear answer so long as the Beaglewas en routeor so long as both Darwin and McCormick could function together as at St. Jago.

Who was the Beagle's Naturalist?

269

At least from Georgian times, as the British navy extended itself over an ever-increasing portion of the world and with the stimulus which the success of Linneanism provided botanical collectors, the naval medical officer was often charged with the specific responsibility for such collections and for such other observations in natural history of which he was capable. Despite the limitations of his education in science, the surgeon or assistant surgeon was in fact the only member of a naval company with the educational background sufficient to make such an activity practicable. And those who received their training in Edinburgh were particularly well equipped, since Edinburgh with its distinguished university and museum provided the best training in natural history available in Europe despite the dullness with which it was sometimes purveyed. Nevertheless, the tradition of the naval-surgeon naturalist was a real one and those who made the tradition provided much of the exotic data available in natural history through most of the first half of the nineteenth century. Lloyd and Coulter suggest that it was the influence which Sir Joseph Banks,'4 as President of the Royal Society, had with the Admiralty that led to the precedent being established "by Cook's voyages for carrying of a naturalist, or for the allocation of the naturalist's duties to one of the ship's surgeons. When, therefore, a series of official voyages of exploration began in the nineteenth century, the naval surgeon was usually instructed by the Admiralty to report on matters of natural history, and often to make meteorological observations as well. The archetype of such surgeon-naturalistswas William Anderson ... the surgeon on Cook's second and third voyages."'5 As McCormick's own account indicates (see below) he was not only aware of this tradition, but consciously prepared himself to function within it. On the other hand, Darwin's official position was poorly defined from the start; and the definition of the role he was to play is unclear, if one can judge from the sometimes frenetic letters which passed between the principals during the last week of August and the first week of September,
I4 Banks, of course, accompanied Cook as a young man of 25, a decade before his election as President of the Royal Society, a position he was to hold continuously until his death in I82o. He sailed with Cook in grander fashion than Darwin but in much the same unofficial capacity as that which Darwin occupied on the Beaglevoyage. See H. C. Cameron, Sirjoseph Banks (London,

I952),
I5

pp.

I3-I6.

Lloyd and Coulter, I963, Op.cit. (3), p. 70. For a general treatment of the surgeonnaturalist see their chapter v, pp. 69-80, in which, however, primary emphasis is placed upon the well-known, if not spectacular, activities of SirJohn Richardson, J. D. Hooker, and T. H. Huxley. Keevil (I943, op. cit. (5), p. 40) lists some of the eighteenth-century surgeon-naturalists: Menzies, Anderson, Richard Hinds, Joseph Arnold, William Wright, George Bass, William Babington"men who could combine the practice of medicine with natural history", men in whom "the great patrons of the eighteenth-century scientific world had delighted". What is still required is a detailed history in which the contributions of the many naval collectors and observers are related to the development of the body of natural history data necessary for the elaboration of biology by mid-nineteenth century. What is true for the more limited activity of the naval surgeon applies also to the expansion of scientific knowledge which was the consequence of the expansion of Empire. The Owen Collection in the British Museum of Natural History, for instance, provides an interesting and valuable record of the involvement of the advance agents of British colonialism in the collection of data in natural science which was processed and synthesized in London.
S

270

JACOB W.

GRUBER

I83I, when the decisions as to Darwin's participation in the voyage were being made. In the first letter of the series, George Peacock writes to Henslow, describing the position to be filled: "An offer has been made to me to recommend a proper person to go out as a naturalist with this expedition; he will be treated with every consideration."'i6 Henslow wrote to Darwin on 24 August, to say that Peacock had asked him to recommend "a naturalist as companion to Captain Fitzroy, employed by the Government to survey the Southern extremity of America . .. Captain Fitzroy wants a man (I understand) more as a companion than a mere collector, and would not take any one, however good a Naturalist who was not recommended to him likewise as a gentleman."I7 But by 5 September, Henslow has suggested to Darwin that Peacock had misrepresented the situation and it seemed as if Darwin would not go. But things changed rapidly: the inability of another of Fitzroy's friends to accompany the Captain made possible the room needed by Darwin and thus a major obstacle was overcome.i8 In explaining the apparent confusion, Darwin wrote his sister on 9 September: "Captain Fitzroy first wished to have a Naturalist, and then he seems to have taken a sudden horror of the chances of having somebody he should not like on board the vessel."'9 Fitzroy's account also stresses the unofficial and personal nature of his invitation to Darwin: After having cleared his suggestion of a naturalist with Captain Beaufort, the Hydrographer, "an offer was made to Mr. Darwin to be my guest on board, which he accepted conditionally; permission was obtained for his embarkation, and an order given by the Admiralty that he should be borne on the ship's books for provisions. The conditions asked by Mr. Darwin were, that he should be at liberty to leave the Beagle and retire from the expedition when he thought proper and that he should pay a fair share of the expenses of my table."20 Darwin's position on board the Beagle, then, was essentially that of a private passenger and companion to the Captain whose presence had official sanction, but whose role was an anomalous one. Darwin was not, of course, the only individual on the Beagle occupying such a private or non-naval position. In addition to the three Fuegians and their "chaperone" whose return was the primary mission of the Beagle, Fitzroy listed five other "supernumeraries", i.e. persons other than the "established comDarwin (London, I887), vol. i, p. I91. Francis Darwin (ed.), The Life and Lettersof Charles I967, p. 30; the transcription of this letter is slightly different in F. Darwin, op. cit. (I6), i, I92. Darwin to Miss S. Darwin, 5 September I83I, ibid., p. 20o; see also Darwin to Henslow, I8 in Barlow, op. cit. (2), I967, p. 38. I9 F. Darwin, op. cit. (i6), i, p. 208; see, however, Peacock to Darwin in Barlow, op. cit. (2), I967, p. 32: "The Admiralty are not disposed to give a salary, though they will furnish you with an official appointment and every accommodation: if a salary should be required however I am inclined to think that it would be granted." 20 Fitzroy, op. cit. (i), pp. I8-I9.
i6

17 Barlow, op. cit. (2),

111ho was the Beagle's Naturalist?

27I

plement" of 65 officers and men. Besides his own steward, Darwin, and Darwin's servant, there was Augustus Earle, a draughtsman, who had been engaged by Fitzroy "in a private capacity" and George James Stebbing, an instrument maker, who had been engaged by Fitzroy as a "private assistant" to Fitzroy himself as the voyage's "surveyor". Although the expedition had an official assistant surveyor in John Stokes, Fitzroy felt it necessary to add someone whose sole responsibility would be the maintenance of the instruments, particularly the chronometers which were so necessary to the survey.21 The private character of Darwin's position is further illustrated by the fact that he was accompanied by his own manservant ;22 he was accountable for his own expenses; he had control over his collections; and that Fitzroy urged him "to get it down in writing at the Admiralty that I have the free choice to leave as soon and whenever I like".23 Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the attempts to recruit a naturalist for the Beagle were hurriedly begun fully six weeks after the Beagle was commissioned for her voyage. The chronology has some importance for an understanding of what can only be considered the off-hand way in which a naturalist was sought and appointed to such an important expedition if it is assumed that no arrangements had been made prior to Peacock's inquiries. The Beagle was commissioned on 4 July I83I; McCormick came on board 20 July; and just about a month later, Peacock writes to Henslow to find a man. Fitzroy's desire to have apparently, someone aboard so that "no opportunity of collecting useful information ... should be lost" certainly was not a sudden idea, particularly in view of his scientific concerns; nor do I think that the assignment of McCormick -with his background, experience, and goals-was mere coincidence. It is not unreasonable to suggest that once on board, McCormick did not seem to be the man Fitzroy would want as naturalist and/or intellectual companion. McCormick on the other hand had prepared himself particularly for a career as a naval naturalist and, by his own testimony, sought those
21
22

Ibid., pp.

19-21.

It is possible to confuse Darwin's servant with Sym Covington who after I833 was Darwin's paid assistant and clerk. The evidence, however, is equivocal. Fitzroy (op. cit. (i), pp. I 9-2 i) lists a servant for Darwin as a supernumerary both at the beginning and at the end of the voyage. Covington, at the beginning of the voyage, was probably one of the six "boys" as part of the "established complement". Prior to I833, Fitzroy made one of the seamen available to Darwin as his assistant. In I833, however, Darwin engaged Covington at [30 per year as his personal assistant in order that the Beagle be not deprived of a seaman's work. Although Darwin was prepared also to pay for Covington's food on board, Fitzroy kept him on the ship's books for victuals. Although I believe that "Darwin's servant" and Covington may have been two different individuals, for the argument in this case it is immaterial since it is quite clear that even in Covington's case, he was to be considered in a private capacity, i.e. as Darwin's man rather than the Navy's man. (On Covington, see Gavin de Beer, "Some Unpublished Letters of Charles Darwin", Notes and Records the Royal Society London(I959), xiv, I6-27). Darwin's letter to his of of sister in which the subject of a servant (i.e. Covington) is broached (Barlow, op. cit. (2), I945, pp. 85-86) does suggest that he had no servant prior to his engagement of Covington. If one accepts that version, Fitzroy's listing of the crew in I839 must be regarded as an anachronism. 23 Barlow, op. cit. (2), I945, p. 45.

272

JACOB W.

GRUBER

assignments which would permit him to act in such a role. He was born on 22 July i8oo, the son of a surgeon in the Royal Navy. Not unlike many another of his generation, his "taste for natural history developed itself at an early age, beginning with the collection of the nests and eggs of the birds of the surrounding district".24 attended Guy's Hospital and St. He Thomas's Hospital in London from I82I as a pupil of the noted surgeon Sir Astley Cooper and, after successfullypassing his examinations, became a member of the Royal College of Surgeonsof London in I822. Receiving an appointment as assistantsurgeon to H.M.S. Queen Charlotte, sailed to he the West Indies in i823 and returned to England in I825. In September of the following year, he applied for service with the North Polar Expedition under the command of Captain CharlesParry and, with the recommendation of Cooper, he received the post of Surgeon on the Hecla, which departed for the Arctic on 25 March I827 and returned on i November of the same year. Following the arctic voyage, McCormick took a year's leave during which he engaged in a series of studies in Medicine and Natural History, the latter at London University. From January to June I830, he was posted to the West Indies again, a service which he detested; and it was following this voyage that, on leave at half-pay, he spent his term in Edinburgh, returning to London in May of I831. By this time he had firmly determined upon a scientific career: "Havingnow fairlytakenup the pursuitof naturalhistory,in additionto my ordinaryprofessional duties,and prepared and qualifiedmyselfby a course of hardstudyand attendance the lectures the mostdistinguished in of professors, my great objectwas to get employedin scientificvoyagesof discovery."'25 He thus declined an appointment in Riga; and he maintains that he was unsuccessfulin his attempt to get attached to scientific voyages through lack of influence. His complaint is a curious one since he did receive an appointment to the Beaglealthough he does not mention the ship by name. "The subsequentthree years (i.e. after May I83I) from which I have to recordwere spent in two small miserablecraft, and for the most part on my old station, the West Indies, where I had alreadysufferedso much from the climate and other depressing influences;which I can only look back to with unavailingregret,as so much time, health,and energiesutterlywasted."26 The first of these "small and miserable" boats was, of course, the Beagle.He notes it as a small io-gun surveying ship "fitting out at Plymouth . . . which I joined on the 20th ofJuly, and on November 22nd
I attended a survey at Plymouth Hospital".27

McCormick'sscientific ambitions were, however, at least partially fulfilled when he was appointed Surgeon and Zoologist (i.e. chief naturalist)
24 25 26 27

Ibid.,pp.
Ibid., p. Ibid., p.

R. McCormick, op. cit. (8), vol. i, p.

2I7-2I8. 2I8. 219.

I85.

Who was the Beagle's Naturalist?

273

to James Clark Ross's expedition to the Antarctic from I839 to I843, the major purpose of which was to make those observations necessary to locate and verify the position of the South Magnetic Pole.28 Coincidentally and ironically, his subordinate on this expedition was the young Joseph Dalton Hooker who had specially trained as a surgeon in order to qualify as a naturalist to the expedition. Again, as in the earlier case, the initial relations between the two men were strained by the equivocal nature of the role of each and the contradictory promises of position. Except for Ross's tact, the formal definition of Hooker's role as subordinate, and, possibly, Hooker's own incipient professionalism and good nature, the of Darwin-McCormick contretemps the Beagle would have been repeated.29 But although Hooker recognized McCormick's deficiencies as a naturalist, he came to respect him and his devotion to his vocation as he appreciated his personal aid. Thus, in the face of difficulties in obtaining sufficient financial support from the government, Hooker wrote to his father that: "Anything that they won't supply my Surgeon [i.e. McCormick] will make up from his own pocket; he is very zealous indeed in the cause and offers me every encouragement.' '30 The most important as well as the most direct evidence not only for the association of this McCormick with the Beagle but also for his aspirations as naturalist, formally defined, to Fitzroy's expedition is a very interesting and, I suspect, previously overlooked letter to McCormick from Robert Jameson, then Regius Professor of Natural History at the University of Edinburgh.3I Written from the College Museum of Edinburgh, on I3 November I831, it contains the suggestions of the renowned Jameson to the young naturalist as he is about to depart on his voyage of collection. The letter reads: "My dear Sir, The other day I had the pleasure of receiving your letter containing the agreeable information of your being appointed to the Beagle Surveying Ship commanded by Capt. Fitzroy. The exploratory expedition will be a most
28 J. C. Ross, A Voyage Discovery and Research the Southern AntarcticRegionsduringthe in anld of years I839-42 (London, I847). 29 It is interesting that despite the close relationship between Darwin and Hooker later, there seems to be no reference to the similarity of their experiences with the same man in the same role on what was to be the most significant exploratory trip for each. 30 Leonard Huxley, Life and Lettersof Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker(London, I9I8), i, p. 45; for the occasional references to McCormick by Hooker, see i, pp. 4I-70 passim. 3' This letter is part of a miscellaneous collection of manuscript materials in the British Museum (Add. 52580, ff. 2I5-2 I6) presented to the Museum by C. Davis Sherborne. Sherborne was a collector of materials of this sort and to him is due the preservation of much of the original documents dealing with nineteenth-century natural science. It was Sherborne who arranged and ensured the preservation of the great mass of the Owen Collection after the death of Sir Richard Owen in I 892; and it was he who served as scientific consultant in the writing of Owen's generally unsatisfactory biography by his grandson, Richard Starton Owen. On the grounds of historiography, this letter has an additional interest, if not importance, for were it not for the fact that the name of the addressee is still preserved on the original folio, the content of the letter could have led to the identification of Charles Darwin as its recipient.

274

JACOB

W.

GRUBER

delightful one & the more particulary [sic] to yourself from the numberless opportunities it will afford for the advancement of natural history. As you will no doubt be provided with ample instructions, anything I would add in the way of particular detail would be of little consequence. Every dept. in all the Kingdoms of nature in the countries you are about to visit possess [sic] a high degree of interest more especially to the naturalist of Europe. Your collection therefore ought to be ample-if animals the skin & also the skeleton ought to be preserved & when possible the whole animals in spirits for the knife by the comparative anatomist. A new system of ornithology has been started founded to a very considerable extent on the form of the cranium. [words missing, but probably: The crania therefore] of the feathered tribes ought [to be] carefully preserved. In your zoological [record??] should be noted the country where the specimen or an [imal was found? ?], its height above the level of the sea-season of [the??] year when killed-its food-its habit and manner name in its native country-its uses, etc. In your botanical collection-to note particularly the height at which the species grow-nature of the soil-exposure, etc. I need say nothing to you as to the collecting of rocks & minerals as you are fully aware of everything as to the mode of collecting them. Let no opportunities escape of drawing such natural sections of the strata as may occur and be careful that such sections are illustrated by very full collections of specimens. The bone caves which you are likely to meet with in some parts of your journey will I doubt not engage your particular attention, as well as the collecting of fossil organic remains of every description. We, as you know, are all now very desirous of knowing how far the fossil organic remains in the same formation the Weald formation for example-agree or differ in distant parts of the world. I shall take it kind[ly] that you write me from time [to time] informing me of the progress of your voyage in which I feel particularly interested.32I have heard from Naval Officers here that Capt. Fitzroy your Commander is a capital officer and excellent man & that you are most fortunate in being appointed to serve along with him. With a thousand good wishes I remain ever faithfully and sincerely yours, Robert Jameson." It is difficult to read this letter as anything other than a series of suggestions to a "naturalist" about to embark on a long voyage of exploration. However McCormick may have defined himself and his position to Jameson, there is no suggestion in this letter that McCormick was to be the expedition's surgeon and only that. Not once does Jameson allude to that role. As a natural historian, Jameson was still at this time virtually without peer in Britain; and the eminence of Edinburgh as both an educational and scientific centre had only just begun to dim as the resurgence of a new empiricism in the natural sciences attacked the layman's science of London while, at the same time, the youthful excitement of Edinburgh at the turn of the century was disappearing in a stodgy old-age. tJameson had been Regius Professor and Keeper of the University Museum since i 804 when he had just come, as a young man of thirty, from the lectures of
32 Mr. Charles P. Finlayson, Keeper of Manuscripts in the Edinburgh University Library, which possesses all that seems to be left of the Jameson papers, has kindly searched the indexes of the collections for me but has found nothing there relating to McCormick.

Who was the Beagle's Naturalist?

275

Werner, bringing with him the whole new spirit of an observational natural science from the Continent. His dogmatic insistence on Wernerian principles of geognosy and the polemics in which he engaged on its behalf obscure now as they did then his real contributions to the development of natural history during the first half of the nineteenth century. His advocacy of the essential speculative position to which Wernerism had arrived detracts from the rigour with which he insisted upon observation in natural history and of which his instructions to McCormick are but a single example. He founded the Wernerian Society as an agency for scientific discussion and communication; he was co-founder of the Edinburgh PhilosophicalJournal (and later, sole editor of its successor, the Edinburgh New PhilosophicalJournal) which served as an outlet for the newer and more liberal science; and most importantly, he founded the first programme in natural history which served as the training ground for a whole generation of natural scientists. Long before he died in I 854, his influence had waned, as much through the changing position of Edinburgh in the learned world of Britain as through his own limitations. Jameson's association with McCormick as adviser was a natural outgrowth of his relation to him as teacher; for, as McCormick notes, he had spent a full term, from i9 November I830 until the end of the following April, as an auditor in Jameson's course of lectures in Natural History in "the modern Athens" of which Edinburgh University was the intellectual centre. In addition to Jameson's lectures and field excursions he attended those of Dr. Mackintosh on the Practice of Medicine and Midwifery and of Dr. Lizar on Anatomy. This winter spent in Edinburgh in the absence of any suitable naval appointment was, in effect, the last of the steps which McCormick had taken over a dozen years to qualify himself as a naturalist on exploring expeditions sponsored by the Admiralty. On 27 December I83I he left on the Beagle for South America, but the opportunities for collecting, which he had been led to expect would be his, did not in fact develop: "Having found myself in a false position on board a small and very uncomfortable vessel, and very much disappointed in my expectations of carrying out my natural history pursuits, every obstacle having been placed in the way of my getting on shore and making collections, I got permission from the admiral in command of the station here to be superseded and allowed a passage home on H.M.S. Tyne."33 Leaving the Beagle at Rio de Janeiro, he arrived back in England on I9 June I832. Although we have little data with reference to the relationships which must have existed aboard the Beagle and which must have played a significant part in the frustration of McCormick's hopes, it is possible to conjecture concerning the conflicts which may have arisen from the con33

McCormick, op. cit. (8), p.

2I9.

276

JACOB

W.

GRUBER

flict in roles occasioned by the presence of both Darwin and McCormick on the same small vessel, each regarding himself as charged with the responsibility for natural history observations. Although there is no certain documentary evidence that McCormick was to have been assigned the formal tasks of Naturalist on the Beagle, the inferential evidence for such a definition of his position is strong. There is the already developed tradition of the Surgeon as naturalist, particularly in those instances where the primary purpose of the voyage was exploratory or scientific. There is the Jameson letter which, though never referring to an official appointment, reads as though such an appointment had in fact been made. There is the hurried appointment of a "private" naturalist whose circumstances led Darwin to ask, in the midst of his own preparations: "What was the reason, that a Naturalist was not long ago fixed upon ?"34 And there is McCormick's own testimony of his aspirations, which is underscored in a later letter to Richard Owen in which he stressed his claims for promotion: "I am the seniorSurgeon on the list of activeservice, have held the rank above 30 years-have been 35 years in the Navy; served in three Polar Expeditions, embracing altogether some seven years spent in frozen regions; with Sir Edw. Parry in his attempt to reach the North Pole in I827, with Sir James Ross in the Antarctic Seas from I839 to I843, & in command of a Boat Expedition in search of Sir John Franklin in I852. I have served three times in the West Indies; & did additional duties of Naturalist & Geologist in all the scientific voyages in which I have been engaged: without the slightest reward in return, in any shape whatever."35 It is quite clear, however, and it soon became so to McCormick, that Darwin's position as Naturalist, however unofficial it may have been, was his by invitation and support of the expedition's Captain. Darwin's unofficial status aboard the Beagle as Fitzroy's guest and companion, in contrast to the formal requirements of the surgeon naturalist explains the independence with which he not only conducted his own activities but also the disposal of his collections and the publication of his journal. Throughout the Beagle voyage, Darwin was separated from the expedition for months at a time during which he maintained his own quarters, and "naturalized" according to his own plan. One need only contrast this freedom of investigation with the constraints imposed upon Hooker on the Erebusor Huxley on the Rattlesnake recognize the uniqueto ness of Darwin's position within the tradition of naval naturalist. Furthermore, although it was the usual procedure for collections made under the auspices of the Admiralty to be deposited first in the British Museum, Darwin, as a personal prerogative, turned his collection of fossils over to the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons so that Richard
34 Darwin to Henslow, 30 August, I83I, in Barlow, op. cit. (2), I967, p. 33. The context suggests that this was a reflection of Darwin's father's concerns. 35 24July I858; Owen Collection, British Museum of Natural History, vol. xviii, ff. 228-229.

Who was the Beagle's Naturalist?

277

Owen could make the descriptions. In a letter from Darwin to Hunt (3 May i868) Darwin, in an autobiographical note, writes: "In the autumn of I831, Captain Fitzroy R.N., having offered to give up part of his own cabin to any naturalist who would accompany H.M.S. Beagle on her surveying voyage and circumnavigation, Mr. Darwin volunteered his that services without salary, but on condition he shouldhavetheentiredisposalof his collections." (emphasis added.) His correspondence with Owen suggests, too, that while he felt some obligations to the public collections because he had been "carried on board" a King's ship, nevertheless he had control over the disposal of his material.36 Although it was this special position which Darwin occupied which led to McCormick finding himself in "a false position", that is, of being naturalist de jure but not de facto, it was not this alone, I think, which created hostilities of such magnitude that they led to McCormick's virtual discharge from the expedition. Much of the difficulty lay in a changing nature of natural science and in something of the social structure of scientific activity. Although McCormick was only nine years older than Darwin, the two men represented two quite different traditions in natural history. McCormick emerges from his own words and from the occasional references to him by both Darwin and Hooker as a typical collector whose intellectual sources were the cabinet constructors of the eighteenth century who sought the specimens of the exotica of nature in order to provide substance for the system of order prescribed by Linnaeus or as modified by his heirs. Valuable as this approach and as this activity were for the furtherance of natural science, it had become traditionalized and ritualized already by the end of the first quarter of the nineteenth century. Collecting itself, the love of the specimen alone, the accumulation of separate objects -these activities were becoming already old-fashioned and the work of amateurs and dilettantes. Such interests were already during Darwin's youth being supplanted by an interest in the natural system as against order and a desire to know the whole organism as against its surface features. Thus in the year of the Beagle's return, Glanville, in the irony of his condemnation of the state of English science, noted that while there had been no progress in natural science, still there had been no decline, for "It consists now, as it always consisted, in a series of nomenclatures and examinations of species, to the entire exclusion of the higher pursuits of that science. Systematic and technical natural history, in fact, is the only natural history cultivated in this country."37 A scant generation later, de Ouatrefages more vividly and zealously
de Beer, op. cit (22), pp. 36-37, 48-49. of A. B. Glanville, The Royal Societyin the XIXth Century; being a Statistical Summary its laboursduringthe last Thirty-Fiverears (London, i836), p. 23.
36 37

278

JACOB W. GRUBER

described the allure of the "higher pursuits of that Science". Recollecting his first oceanographic work on the islands of Chausey in the early I840's, he noted that he rejected the prevailing descriptive goals: "I have never had the slightest taste for that modification of science," he confessed, "which rests satisfied with examining the exterior of an animal, and then pinning it on a cork or putting it into a bottle, with its name duly inscribed on a label. There can be no doubt that the preliminary labour of compiling systematic lists was indispensably necessary, and I am far from wishing to detract from the debt of gratitude which we owe to the patient and laborious observers who have drawn up classified catalogues of living species, or to those who are adding to them daily. We ought, however, strenuously to avoid the grave error of reducing zoology to the standard of a mere appraiser's craft. He who knows nothing of an animal beyond the name and place apportioned to it in a more or less well devised system of nomenclature, no more deserves the title of naturalist than a librarian's assistant deserves the name of savant, because he knows by heart the titles of all his books, and their local and numerical arrangement in the press in which they are kept. No! in the case either of a book or of an animal we must go deeper than the binding, we must penetrate below the skin. True zoology, or that form of it towards which all other branches of natural science ought to converge, consists in studying the relations of organised beings and their connexion with the inorganic world, in investigating the play of the organs as animated instruments of these mysterious affinities; in penetrating into their mechanism; in following them in their modifications, in order to distinguish, if possible, between what is essential and what is incidental; in ascending from all these effects to the cause, and thus penetrating at some future day into the arcana of life; this is the end and aim of true zoology, the rest 38 merely constitute the means." It was this shift in emphasis from compilation to analysis which made the traditional teaching of Edinburgh so dull; and it was this shift in emphasis which drove a younger generation to an intense, full-time devotion to the study of nature in all of its parts which was the beginning of professionalism in natural science. From Hooker's references to McCormick, he emerges as a pleasant man devoted to the pursuit of natural history; but he was too much an amateur to develop the almost singleminded commitment, so characteristic of Darwin, which would make him a natural scientist. It was this difference which separated the turn-of-thecentury naturalists from those of a subsequent generation which made any close relationship between the two Beagle naturalists so difficult if not so impossible. And Darwin, with his peculiar incisiveness, recognized the difference. Commenting on McCormick's, "the Doctor's", return to England he noted: "He was a philosopher of rather antient date; at St. Jago by his own account he made general remarksduring the firstfortnight & collected particular facts during the last."39
38 A. de Quatrefages, The Ramblesof a Naturalist on the Coasts of France, Spain, and Sicily (trans. E. C. Otte, London, I857), pp. 50-5I. 39 Darwin to Henslow, i8 May I832, Barlow, op. cit. (2), I967, p. 56.

Whlowas the Beagle's Naturalist?

279

There may well have been other more personal differences between the two. In contrast to McCormick's obvious regard for Jameson both as a scientist and as a teacher, there is Darwin's: "During my second year in Edinburgh (I826-27) I attended Jameson's lectures on Geology and Zoology, but they were incredibly dull. The sole effect they produced on me was the determination never as long as I lived to read a book on Geology or in any way to study the science."40 Furthermore, Keevil notes that McCormick's love of nature made him unwilling to shoot unnecessarily birds or any other wildlife; but Darwin confessed to a "passion" for shooting which "survived in nearly full force" for the first two years of the Beagle voyage, "I shot myself all the birds and animals for my collection; but gradually I gave up my gun more and more . . . I discovered, though unconsciously and insensibly, that the pleasure of observing and reasoning was a much higher one than that of skill and sport. The primeval instincts of the barbarian slowly yielded to the acquired tastes of the civilized man."4' A more subtle factor, however, may have been the pervasive effect of the English social class system upon scientific activity. In the first quarter of the nineteenth century, Science,as a revelation of the truths of nature, was the possession of the English upper classes. Scientific activity, had hardly become, as it was to a generation later, an avenue of social mobility whereby the sons of tradesmen and merchants could achieve social success and prestige; science itself had not yet insinuated its "truths" into all levels of society. A serious fight against class privilege in the Royal Society had just been lost in I830 and its eventual success was to come in another generation. Science was still the province of the gentleman. Glanville's analysis of the membership of the Royal Society in I830 demonstrates the point. Of the membership of 662, 376 were by profession or by birth (or both) upper middle class or aristocracy, i.e. Bishops (io), Noblemen (63), Naval or Army Officers (66), Clergy (74), Law (63), Physicians (79), Surgeons (2I). There were 286 of no stated profession, many of whom, by social attributes alone, would be included among the upper classes. The burden of Glanville's argument was that the 376 in the former category (Bishops, Noblemen, etc.) contributed nothing to science. If one discounts the unusual I09 contributions by Everard Home, the 376 members contributed only I74 papers to the Plilosophical Transactions. Put another way, only 55 of the 376 produced anything at all; and only 32 produced more than a single paper. Similarly, although the 286 in the unspecified category produced I87 articles, these were the products of only 48, with only 29 contributing more than a single paper. Glanville's conclusion was, therefore, that the largest part of the membership of the
40 4'

Barlow, Op. Cit. (2),

1958, p.

52.

Ibid., PP. 78-79.

280

JACOB

W.

GRUBER

Royal Society, the most highly esteemed scientific society in Europe, were not contributors to science but held their membership by social position and influence alone.42 A more poignant and individual expression of the effect of social class position upon scientific aspirations and activity is contained in a very interesting letter from the young John Tyndall to Edward Sabine, already a powerful figure in the scientific establishment. Ridden by guilt that Sabine might be supporting him without realizing his social background, Tyndall wrote a long autobiographical letter in which he noted that his father, though "a man of inflexible integrity and intrinsic truthfulness of heart", was a poor man, a seller of leather and shoes. "Of course," he wrote, "you have judged me on scientific grounds alone, and taken it for granted that my private character is unblameable; anything I have now to communicate will not interfere with the opinions which you hold at present upon these points; . . . But in this country, other circumstances beside character and ability come into play-there is social position for instance -and it is on this point that I wish to relieve my mind by giving you precise information." He concludes: "It is of course impossible for me to predict what effect the above sketch will have upon your future bearing towards me I believe it is my duty to make you acquainted with the facts of my position, and I leave consequences in the hands of the ruler of them.... The tendency of my life during the last ten years has, as regards social standing, been an upward one, but in no case have I forsaken a straightforward course nor purchased a single advantage by other than honourable means-I will not do so now, nor even by my silence permit you to labour under any mistake regarding me. If you support me it shall be with a clear knowledge of what I am before you. I have endeavoured, with what success I know not, to render myself fit for intercourse with cultivated men, believing it to be a duty which I owe both to myself and to society . . . it now remains for me to make the experiment whether a man with nothing but naked character to recommend him may not, in these kingdoms, find the doors to an honourable activity open to him."43 Sabine's reply provides not only some indication as to the changes that were already taking place, but also some testimony to his own virtue. Acknowledging the letter, he noted that: "I imagine that you attach more importance to the bearing of the subject matter which it communicates on your reception by the world & prospects in it than really belongs to it in the social state of this country. There are but two realpoints, moral uprightness and intellectual cultivation & attainment. . . The circumstances you relate shewing you to be the architect of your own fortunes, would with most persons, I should think entitle you to additional respect."44 The relation between social class and science was intensified on the Beagle by the zeal of Fitzroy's own identification with both the scientific mission of his expedition and his upper class affiliations. To social subordinates-his junior officers and the tradesmen with whom he dealt as
42 43 44

Glanville, op. cit. (37), 34-49. SabineCorrespondence, Royal Society of London, 4 July TyndallCorrespondence, Royal Institution, 6 July I852.

I852.

Who was the Beagle's Naturalist?

28i

captain-he was imperious and, at best, condescending.45 His notion of science was essentially one which saw its promotion as the duty of the elect and the privilege of the socially superior. In this he fitted the norms of his place and time. It is, therefore, not surprising that in requesting a naturalist to accompany him, he should stress that he be above all a gentleman; and a gentleman, of course, Darwin was. McCormick, on the other hand, both by the definition of his position and by his own background was at best the equivalent of the tradesmen, those ubiquitous strivers in English society who were the primary object of the contempt of the upper class. McCormick's father had been a naval surgeon before him at a time when surgery had just begun its move toward the professional respectability which it was to achieve by mid-century. The Royal College of Surgeons of London grew out of the Company of Surgeons only in i 8oo, the year of McCormick's birth; and throughout the first half of the century, despite the increasing prestige of some notable practitioners, surgeons were still subject to social disability and a reputation which limited surgery's appeal as a satisfactory occupational goal for the British upper class.46 The naval surgeon occupied an even more tenuous social position since he was recognized neither as part of the officer class of the Navy nor, by his profession, as a member of a prestigious social class. They were, in the Navy, regarded as technicians rather than officers.47 Thus, neither in society at large nor in the tight virtually self-contained social structure of the naval system were they part of the elite. And to Fitzroy, as to Darwin, eacn with his sense of intellectual duty and commitment, McCormick must have seemed superficial in his concerns. Apart from the naivete of his science, Darwin remarked that his "friend the Doctor is an ass, but we jog on very amicably: at present he is in great tribulation, whether his cabin shall be painted french grey or a dead white-I hear little except this
45 493-510.

See Nora Barlow, "Robert Fitzroy and Charles Darwin", Cornhill Magazine, lxxii

(1932),

46 See Zachary Cope, The Historyof the Royal Collegeof Surgeons England (London, I959). of Since this has the character of an authorized history, it glosses over the earlier period of social difficulties and stresses that of later successes. However, Newman (Charles Newman, The Evolutionof MedicalEducation theNineteenth in Century (London, 1957), is more specific about the prestige distinction between the physician (with his university background and affiliation) and the surgeon whose origins were technical and practical. His brief treatment of the medical (more properly surgical) student (pp. 41-47) suggests the differences in social selectivity between the two branches of medicine which were occasioned both by the nature and by the costs of the respective training programmes. In more specific terms, the elder John Lubbock expressed perhaps something of the distaste of the upper classes for surgical training when, in a letter dated 2I February I 849 he requested Richard Owen's help in getting some private instruction in anatomy for his son, then aged I 5: "What occurs to me is that perhaps one of the demonstrators or lecturers or ["at" intended] Kings College or any of the hospitals would give him three or four lessons charging so much for each either at their own residence or at my house as I do not wish him to get amongst the students" (Owen Collection, B.M.N.H., f. i8: 76a). 47 Actually, until I 843, when naval surgeons were first commissioned rather than appointed by warrant, they were in effect second-class officers when compared with executive officers who were "gentlemen" rather than specialists. Lloyd and Coulter quote one witness before the Milne Commission in i866 as saying: "I think that they [medical officers] are regarded as an inferior class of being altogether [by executive officers]", op. cit. (3), p. 19.

282

JACOB

W.

GRUBER

subject from him".48 This when all Darwin or Fitzroy could think of was the sufficiency of new instruments or the strength of new scientific powers. At the time of the Beagle's voyage, English natural science was in the midst of that generation of transition whose end was to see the emergence of a body of professionals whose social position and honour were the products of their accomplishments rather than those of their birth. The sources of the conflicts between Darwin and Fitzroy on the one hand and McCormick on the other lay, in part at least, in the confusion of social definition which these years were struggling to erase. It was a confusion within the social structure of English society within which science and its practice evolved during the nineteenth century and within which it found its form. Such factors can be so pervasive and so effective in shaping the process of science that they can hardly be felt by those whom they affect. It is for the historian of science to measure their extent, to extract this bit of meaning, as he examines the whole of the intricate pattern through time. Acknowledgement I should like to express my appreciation to the U.S. National Science Foundation (G I6I67) and the Faculty Research Committee of Temple University for the support which made possible the collection of the materials upon which this article is based.

48

Darwin to Henslow, 30 October i83I in Barlow, op. cit.

(2),

1967, p. 46.