It is well known that after 5 years travelling the globe, Darwin worked almost all of his life from home in the quiet village of Down in Kent. His work seems to fit well within the tradition of gentlemanly science that persisted in Britain well into the second half of the nineteenth century, using the house and its environs as a site of observation and makeshift experiment, reliant upon family members for assistance, and personal networks of exchange, especially letter writing.
The home is often viewed as a pre-modern space of scientific practice, or as a centre of 'popular' science in the modern period. As such it is juxtaposed to more impersonal and mechanized institutions of teaching and research that emerge in conjunction with the modern state, and eventually predominate over the course of the 19th century. Darwin's richly documented working life challenges these assumptions and juxtapositions, while bringing into focus what is perhaps a more telling feature of domestic science, namely the role of the affections in the production of knowledge. Darwin's work shows the enduring importance of the home in the making of elite science in the late 19th century. The Darwin household, with its team of assistants, chain of command, and battery of research programmes pursued over decades shares features usually identified with state science; while Darwin himself acquires many of the characteristics of an institution, occupying a stable centre of authority, directing the research agendas of others, and authoring a stream of publications based upon work by remote observers, collectors, and collaborators, a community of work bound not, however, by bureaucratic allegiance or professional obligation, but by emotional ties: familial love and friendship, adoration, reverence, and mutual respect.