This Thing of Darkness

Written by: The Late Harry Thompson

Submitted By: Chris Bradley

1828 - Brilliant young naval officer Robert FitzRoy is given the captaincy of HMS Beagle, surveying the wilds of Tierra del Fuego, aged just twenty-three. He takes a passenger: a young trainee cleric and amateur geologist named Charles Darwin. This is the story of a deep friendship between two men, and the twin obsessions that tore it apart, leading one to triumph and the other to disaster.  It also chronicles Fitzroy's development of the Weather Forecast.  Only recently acknowledged by the creation of a Sea Area around the British Isles called Fitzroy.  This is one of the most moving stories I have ever read.