Black History Month: John Edmonstone

John Edmonstone was born into slavery but died having made quite a contribution to science and how we see the world.

How? He was an early teacher of one of the most influential scientists of the last two centuries – Charles Darwin.

Edmonstone was born on a plantation in Demerara, in present-day Guyana, South America. Charles Edmonstone, a Scottish politician who owned the plantation, brought John to Glasgow with him in 1817 and he was made a free man not long after.

He settled in Edinburgh, working as a taxidermist at what is now the National Museum of Scotland, having learned about the field back in Guyana. This is where he ended up living a few doors down from Charles Darwin, who was 16 at the time and had come to the city to study medicine. Darwin had decided medicine was not for him, and became more interested in the work Edmonstone was doing, paying him as a private tutor in naturalism.

Darwin describes Edmonstone in his autobiography as a man with high intellect, with whom he enjoyed having long conversations, including about Edmonstone’s homeland and the wildlife there. It is surely no coincidence that not long after these conversations Darwin set off on his voyage to the Galapagos, where he used the bird taxidermy skills he had learned from Edmonstone.

No one seems to know what happened to the former slave after this, though it is believed he stayed in Edinburgh.

It is sad to think that so little is known about Edmonstone, a man so intelligent and so skilled in his chosen field, and that we wouldn’t know what little we do now, if Darwin hadn’t mentioned the impact Edmonstone had on him in his autobiography.

This is why I’m delighted to be writing about him for Black History Month. When we discussed key UK figures to celebrate, I was keen to research Edmonstone and am pleased to be able to highlight his achievements.