Why is Darwin buried in Westminster Abbey?
Where do you bury someone like Charles Darwin, a man who admittedly had lost his Christian faith and declared himself an agnostic? When he died on April 19, 1882, his family planned to bury him in the local churchyard beside the graves of his children. Some of Darwin’s countrymen, however, had other ideas and quickly began lobbying leading scientists and members of government to come together and ask the dean of Britain’s Westminster Abbey to allow Darwin to be buried there. The dean, Reverend George Granville Bradley, responded that his “assent would be cheerfully given”, and so Darwin, the agnostic, was buried in Westminster Abbey on the afternoon of April 26. Darwin’s old friend, botanist Joseph Hooker, was among the pallbearers, as were Alfred Russel Wallace, the young naturalist whose writings had pushed Darwin into publishing his own theory, and James Russell Lowell, the United States’ ambassador to Britain. In a part of the Abbey known as Scientists’ Corner, Darwin lies a few fe
It is a peculiar case of “doublethink” that the Church of England is fully capable of. Burial in Westminster Abbey is reserved for those who have made a profound contribution to British culture or science. Darwin was never openly atheist, perhaps as not to offend his wife (who was devoutly religious) but his letters show us now that he was fully atheist. The C of E would have had no problem giving him the honour, as his discovery of natural selection was truly ground breaking.
