1850s Gallery

Charles Darwin in his evolutionary tree

Charles Darwin in his evolutionary tree. Caricature of the British naturalist Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882) sitting in his evolutionary tree'. Darwin studied the differences in closely related but geographically separated species. The evolutionary tree was the notion that all living things are related and, as different species have evolved from common ancestors, new branches of the tree occur. This notion was first illustrated and popularised in The Origin of Species (1859), which also discussed natural selection, the notion that variations in species form arose over time, but only those variations which enhanced a species chance of survival would be propagated

© BILL SANDERSON/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Aerial view of Forest Gate Hospital, East London

An aerial view of the Forest Gate Hospital, London E7. The hospital was originally opened in 1854 by the Whitechapel Union as an industrial school for 800 children, then from 1868-1897 was the Forest Gate District School. It was a hospital from 1930 until the 1980s but is now used for residential purposes

© Mary Evans Picture Library 2015 - https://copyrighthub.org/s0/hub1/creation/maryevans/MaryEvansPictureID/10472781

19th-century alga cyanotype

19th-century alga cyanotype. Cyanotype of the algae Cystoseira fibrosa, as produced by British botanist Anna Atkins (1799-1871). Cystoseira is a seaweed, a brown alga found in temperate Northern Hemisphere seas and oceans. The cyanotype blueprinting imaging technique was invented by British astronomer John Herschel (1792-1871). This cyanotype was published in part VII of Photographs of British Algae (1843-1853) by Atkins, who used also used the photogenic drawing method devised by William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877). This image is from an edition of the book owned originally by Herschel

© SPENCER COLLECTION/NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY/ SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY