ABSTRACT
Like Hewett Cottrell Watson, Charles Robert Darwin was from an upper-middle-class family. Born in 1809, he was five years younger than Watson. In school, Charles reacted to the classical curriculum just as Hewett did, seeing it as boring and irrelevant. He found alternative interests in chemistry, collecting beetles and hunting birds. Charles's level of involvement in politics and in society was about the same as Watson's. In contrast to Watson's negative evaluation of the Azoreans, Darwin thought: 'It was pleasant to meet the peasantry; he does not recollect ever having beheld a set of handsomer young men, with more goodhumoured expressions'. Both Darwin and Watson were Fellows of The Linnean Society of London, and since it was tilted toward botany, one might expect Watson to have been the more active of the two in its meetings and affairs. Darwin, in his later botanical writings, was to cite Watson's works often, though he forgot to include him in 'An Historical Sketch'.
