HMS Victory, the town of Sittingbourne and the Theory of Evolution.

[MartinR]

Thanks for that Stuart, but I'm afraid I'm going to pick you up on one small point.  The "seed of the idea [evolution] was first planted in Darwin's mind" well before the voyage on HMS Beagle.  At Edinburgh Medical school he was exposed to Lamarck's ideas and had previous read (and translated) bis grandfather's journals.  In Zoonomia Erasmus Darwin had written

Would it be too bold to imagine, that in the great length of time, since the earth began to exist, perhaps millions of ages before the commencement of the history of mankind, would it be too bold to imagine, that all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament, which THE GREAT FIRST CAUSE endued with animality, with the power of acquiring new parts, attended with new propensities, directed by irritations, sensations, volitions, and associations; and thus possessing the faculty of continuing to improve by its own inherent activity, and of delivering down those improvements by generation to its posterity, world without end

[stuartwaters]

Wow, that went more quickly than I thought it would, well done to Cosmo and to Longpockets for filling in the gap around Sir John Stevens Henslow's father.


I'll flesh the story out with a bit more detail. The best way to explain this is to start at the end and work back. The theory of evolution was first publicly proposed in the book "On the Origin of Species", published in 1858 and written by Charles Darwin. The seed of the idea was first planted in Darwins mind during a five year long voyage of discovery in a small Royal Navy warship, specially converted for the voyage, HMS Beagle. Darwin was a Botanist and Geologist by trade and he had studied Botany and Geology at St John's College in Cambridge University, starting in 1828. His tutor, friend and mentor had indeed been Sir John Stevens Henslow.


Sir John Stevens Henslow had been born, raised and educated in the City of Rochester, where his father, John Prentice Henslow was a prominent solicitor.


John Prentice Henslow had been the son of Sir John Henslow, Surveyor of the Navy. Sir John Henslow was born in 1730 in the Woolwich Royal Dockyard, where is father, also John, had been Master House Carpenter at the time of his birth. In 1745, at the age of 14, the young John Henslow had travelled to the Royal Dockyard at Plymouth, to be indentured as an apprentice Draughtsman to Thomas Slade, at the time, Master Shipwright in the Royal Dockyard. John Henslow was eventually promoted to the position of Surveyor or Chief Designer at the Navy Board in 1784. During his long career as Surveyor, he designed some of the Royal Navy's most successful vessels and was knighted for his work by King George III in 1793. He retired in 1806, and lived out his retirement in Sittingbourne where he died in 1815. After his death, he was buried at St Mary Magdalene's Church in his home town of Woolwich.


Thomas Slade was eventually promoted to Surveyor of the Navy and also produced the designs for some of the Royal Navy's most successful vessels, including HMS Victory.


So well done everybody. If anyone fancies setting a similar puzzle, please do, but post it as a separate thread.

[Cosmo Smallpiece]

Ahhh! I see him now  .


I confess I was wasting my time googling evolutionary scientists other than Darwin, when I was lucky enough to be online when that last clue was posted.

[Longpockets]

John Henslow's son was John Prentis Henslow, solicitor.

[Cosmo Smallpiece]

1) Sir Thomas Slade was the designer for HMS Victory.
2) In 1745 John Henslow was apprenticed to him. Henslow retired to Sittingbourne in 1806.
3) his son.......Wiki failed me here....?
4) ...but his grandson was John Stevens Henslow, botanist who......
5) was friend and mentor to his student, Charles Darwin. Henslow and Darwin met in 1828. Darwin dabbled in the Theory of Evolution.

[MartinR]

Stuart, just to check: you do mean Sittingbourne and not Milton Regis?

[stuartwaters]

I'll throw in a clue before I go to bed. The first connection between unrelated people in the chain of connections occurred in 1745. The last connection between unrelated people occurred in 1828. The connection to Sittingbourne occurred in 1806.

[stuartwaters]

Nothing to do with Nelson or the officers and crew of HMS Victory at any point. The HMS Victory connection is older than the ship itself. The ship's Purser would have been one of many Pursers who served on the ship during her career. After all, the ship was 40 years old at the Battle of Trafalgar.


HMS Victory is the only ship involved in this particular string of connections.

[castle261]

Here is my pennyworth.

One of the Victory`s officer`s - the Purser - came from Sittingbourne

Maybe one of the ship`s Nelson trained on -- was ` H.M.S. Evolution `.

[Longpockets]

I can connect the three by two ships, one person and one place. I will have to keep digging.

[KeithG]

I 2nd that Pete  ... I worked at Trinity Trading Estate for over 12yrs.

[pete.mason]

As an ex Sittingbourne resident, can I suggest Evolution is way behind everywhere else? 

[stuartwaters]

Do any of m'learned friends remember a TV show which was on many years ago, James Burke's Connections? In the show, former Tomorrow's World presenter James Burke would take a number of seemingly random events, people or places and then spend the show connecting them. The detective work involved was fascinating.


I was wondering if anyone on the Forum has the time and the inclination to connect all the three things listed above. All the leads you require are available online. They are connected through five people who in turn were connected to each other. Three of them were consecutive generations of the same family.