Charles Darwin. Statue commemorating the British naturalist Charles Robert Darwin (1809-1882). Darwin is most famous for his theories on evolution discussed in "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection", which he published in 1859. In this book Darwin proposed that natural variation within a species creates many individual traits, some more useful than others. He suggested that only those individuals with the most competitive traits (those that are best suited to their environment) survive to reproduce. This statue is outside the building in Shrewsbury were Darwin went to school, now Shrewsbury Town Library.