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Portrait of Darwin on the banquet menu. Click on image for full page.

An album of ephemera from the Darwin Commemoration, Cambridge, 22–24 June 1909
Compiled by John Willis Clark
Cam.b.909.1

The University Registrary and antiquary John Willis Clark (1833–1910) was one of two honorary secretaries for the committee for the Darwin Celebration of 1909 (the second being the Cambridge Professor of Botany Sir Albert Charles Seward, 1863-1941). This album, part of the Library's Cambridge collection, contains a number of papers printed for distribution amongst members of the committee only, as well as preliminary and revised versions of items such as the 'List of delegates and other guests invited by the University'. Clark died in 1910, the year after the celebration, and his bequest to Library added thousands of items to this and other collections.

The material in the album gives a sense of the scale of the events: a reception for delegates by the Chancellor of the University (Lord Rayleigh), speeches in the Senate House, visits to colleges, garden parties (including one hosted by Darwin's children in Trinity College), a nine-course formal banquet, honorary degrees conferred in the Senate House, as well as various exhibitions and displays. Recipients of honorary degrees included the botanist Sir Francis Darwin (1848–1925), Charles Darwin's seventh child. The Rede Lecture for the year was delivered in the Senate House after the honorary degree ceremony by Sir Archibald Geikie, President of the Royal Society, who spoke on 'Darwin as geologist'. Amongst the items relating to the banquet held on 23 June in the New Examination Hall at 7 pm are Clark’s official invitation, a note to members of the Senate on the correct form of dress, a copy of the menu, and a full seating plan. There are also copies of the menu (less lavishly printed) and seating plan for the separate ladies’ dinner, held at Newnham College. A number of newspaper clippings record how the celebrations were covered in the local, national and international press.

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The formal programme of events ended on Thursday 24 June; however, a printed notice in the album outlines in detail the arrangements for a visit by delegates to Charles Darwin’s home at Down in Kent on Friday 25 June. At the time, Down House was being run as a girls’ boarding school by Olive Willis.

The album also includes a number of pamphlets or offprints:

• Darwin celebration, Cambridge, June, 1909 : speeches delivered at the banquet held on June 23rd. [Cambridge : Printed by the "Cambridge Daily News", Limited, St. Andrew’s Street, 1909]. Item no. 34

• The Darwin celebration at Cambridge / by Professor T.D.A Cockerell. [New York : s.n., 1910]. Reprinted from: Popular Science Monthly, January, 1910. Item no. 35

• Darwiniana : being a reprint of three short essays prepared for the Darwin Centenary at Cambridge, June 22-24, 1909 / by Benjamin Daydon Jackson. London : Printed by Taylor and Francis ..., 1910. Item no. 36

The next item in the Cambridge collection, Cam.b.909.2, is also related to the 1909 centenary: Order of the proceedings at the Darwin celebration held at Cambridge June 22-June 24, 1909 : with a sketch of Darwin’s life. Cambridge : Printed at the Cambridge University Press, 1909. Cam.b.909.2

The Darwin 2009 Anniversary Festival was held in Cambridge from 5–10 July. The exhibition A voyage round the world: Charles Darwin and the Beagle collections in the University of Cambridge runs at the University Library from 6 July–23 December 2009.


References and further reading:

Marsha Richmond, 'The 1909 Darwin Celebration: reexamining evolution in the light of Mendel, mutation, and meiosis', Isis, 97 (2006), 447–484.

'1909: the first Darwin centenary'. The complete works of Charles Darwin online. http://darwin-online.org.uk/1909.html

The album is complemented by the following material held in the University Archives:

University/CUR 133: University Registry guard books: Darwin Centenary Celebration, 22–24 June 1909

University/Conf.I: University papers relating to conferences: Papers relating to the Darwin Centenary Commemoration and Conference, held in Cambridge 22–24 June 1909

University/Misc.Collect.80-1: University Registry miscellanea: Records relating to the Darwin Centenary Celebrations in Cambridge, 22–24 June 1909

University/O.IX 119: Records relating to the administrative and academic officers of the University: Lists of delegates and guests at Darwin Centenary Conference in Cambridge, 22–24 June 1909

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