Original version

BBC World Service News Internet

The Forum

Documentaries

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

The programme that explains the present by exploring the past

The programme that explains the present by exploring the past.

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa Schedule

BBC World Service East and Southern Africa

BBC World Service Australasia

BBC World Service Online

BBC World Service schedule for American satellite radio and the Caribbean

BBC World Service Americas and the Caribbean

BBC World Service

BBC World Service Europe and the Middle East

BBC World Service South Asia

BBC World Service West and Central Africa Schedule

BBC World Service West and Central Africa

BBC World Service East Asia

The Forum: The amazing Dr Darwin

Portrait of Erasmus Darwin by Joseph Wright.

23/01/2020 GMT

The amazing Dr Darwin

BBC World Service - The Forum, The amazing Dr Darwin

The life of Erasmus Darwin, one of the most remarkable minds in 18th Century Britain

A leading physician, a popular poet, an inventor and a pioneering biologist who understood evolution: Erasmus Darwin was a true a Renaissance man.

Erasmus Darwin was a man of many talents; not only was he a successful physician, a popular poet, an ardent abolitionist and a pioneering botanist, he also worked out how organisms evolve, some 70 years before his grandson Charles’s theories about this revolutionised science. He is credited with many inventions and discoveries including the steering mechanism used in modern cars, the gas laws of clouds and a document copying machine. And he knew how to live life to the full; he fathered at least 14 children and his love of food meant that his dining table had to have a chunk sawn out of it to accommodate his considerable waistline.

Joining Rajan Datar to explore the life and work of this remarkable man are Dr Patricia Fara, Emeritus Fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and biographer of Erasmus Darwin; Dr Malcolm Dick, director of the Centre for West Midlands History at the University of Birmingham; and Maurizio Valsania, professor at the University of Turin in Italy who specialises in 18th Century intellectual history.

(Picture: Portrait of Erasmus Darwin by Joseph Wright of Derby. Credit: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group/Getty Images)

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Forum

The amazing Dr Darwin

Genres

Formats

Brand

BBC World Service News Internet

About BBC World Service