During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the English Midlands – where Chatsworth is located – saw an outpouring of scientific and technological innovations that would change the world. To name only two among many, Josiah Wedgwood revolutionised the ceramics industry and Charles Darwin proposed the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection. On 2 August 1847, a man with links to both of these innovators signed in at Chatsworth.

Robert Waring Darwin was born in 1766. His father, Erasmus, was a doctor, poet, abolitionist and naturalist. Erasmus suggested that all living things were related rather than each being created, separately, by God. This, of course, foreshadowed Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Erasmus and Charles were grandfather and grandson. Our visitor to Chatsworth was the son of Erasmus and the father of Charles. Misses Darwin, presumably daughters or granddaughters of Robert, signed in below him in the visitors’ book.

Robert Darwin was born in Lichfield. His mother died in 1770. A governess called Mary Parker was hired to look after him, became his father’s mistress and bore Erasmus two illegitimate daughters. In 1783 Robert went to the University of Edinburgh to study medicine. He moved on to Leiden University in The Netherlands and it was here that he qualified in 1785.

Robert Darwin returned to Britain and, in 1787, set up a medical practice in Shrewsbury, where his practice grew rapidly.

In 1796 he married Susannah Wedgwood, a daughter of the pioneering potter Josiah Wedgwood. She bore him six children, the fifth of which was Charles Darwin. Susannah died in 1817, from an unknown cause, believed to be either a severe ulcer or stomach cancer.

Robert was a large man, 6 feet 2 inches (1.88m) tall. Though slim in his younger days he reportedly attained the weight of 336 lb (around 24 stone or 153kg) later in life. Family anecdote suggested that when visiting houses of poor families, his coachman had to test the floorboards of houses before Robert entered, and that he had to have reinforced stone steps made so he could enter his carriage.

Robert Darwin died in Shrewsbury in 1848, aged 82. He was buried at St Chad’s Church in Montford, near Shrewsbury. His wife and his daughter Susan lie beside him. Robert didn’t live to see Charles publish On the Origin of Species in 1859. When that happened, once again a man from the Midlands was shaking the world.