page_title: Thomas Henry Huxley
section_title: Voyage round the world
hierarchical_section_title: Thomas Henry Huxley / Voyage round the world
caption_attribution_description: English: prob. a b&amp;w photo of the painting HMS Rattlesnake off Sydney Heads by Oswald Brierly, the ship's artist.
context_page_description: Thomas Henry Huxley PC PRS was an English biologist who specialised in comparative anatomy. He was born in Ealing, Middlesex. He was a friend and supporter of Charles Darwin, and had a public career. He was a member of ten Royal Commissions.
  Today he is sometimes called Darwin's Bulldog for his support of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. However, this term was not used during his lifetime. Huxley was slow to accept some of Darwin's ideas, but he was wholehearted in his public support of Darwin.
  Huxley's 1860 debate with the English Bishop Samuel Wilberforce was a famous public event. The debate was about evolution, and it was widely reported in the press. Many thought Huxley won that debate, which helped Huxley's career, and the theory of evolution.
  Huxley also developed scientific education in Britain, and fought against the more extreme forms of religion. These activities had a big effect on the way people in Britain and elsewhere thought about the world. Huxley used the term agnostic to say that he did not know if there is a god or not. We continue to use the term agnostic today.
  Huxley had little schooling, and taught himself almost everything he knew.
context_section_description: As a young man, Huxley went on a long voyage of discovery to the southern continents. He was Assistant to the Surgeon on the Royal Navy ship HMS Rattlesnake. What he did was to collect sea animals, and study them. He went ashore in New Guinea and the eastern coast of Australia, to study the animals, and the native peoples. He fell in love with a girl in Sydney, Australia, and some years later they married and had children.
caption: HMS Rattlesnake off Sydney Heads by Oswald Brierly, the ship's artist.
exif: {}