Which is it?
Which is it?
It was the later. A close relative of the Beagle's captain, Robert Fitzroy, had gone insane as a ship's captain and had committed suicide. Fitzroy was worried about a familial tendency to insanity and wanted a gentleman companion to dine and have conversation with. (The authoritatian ethos on British naval ships of the period prevented the captain from socializing much with members of the crew, even other officers.)
Someone at Darwin Central previously posted (not this thread...another) that Darwin was on the HMS Beagle for purposes of providing company to the captain (not to be the ship's physician).
Which is it?
On leaving Cambridge in the spring of 1831 Darwin, in preparation for a scientific trip to the Canary Islands, read Alexander von Humboldt's Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent, a scientific travelogue of a journey to Central and the northern parts of South America. At Henslow's recommendation he accompanied Adam Sedgwick, Woodwardian professor of geology at Cambridge, on a three-week tour of North Wales to learn geologic fieldwork.
In August 1831, at Henslow's recommendation to the Admiralty, Darwin was invited to sail as the unpaid naturalist on HMS Beagle. The ship was to survey the east and west coasts of South America and continue to the Pacific islands to establish a chain of chronometric stations.
Henslow suggested Darwin as both an acute observer and a companion for the aristocratic young captain, Robert FitzRoy. (The Beagle already had a naturalist-surgeon, but one whom FitzRoy found socially unsuitable.) Robert Darwin first refused permission on grounds that it was dangerous and would not advance Charles in his career. But upon the intercession of his brother-in-law, Josiah Wedgwood II, he changed his mind.