The Reverend John Brodie Innes (26 December 1815 – 19 October 1894), John Innes before 1862, was a clergyman who became a close friend of

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended ...

Downe Downe, formerly Down, () is a village in Greater London, England, located within the London Borough of Bromley but beyond the London urban sprawl. Downe is south west of Orpington and south east of Charing Cross. Downe lies on a hill, and ...

in Kent, and remained a friendly correspondent for the rest of Darwin's life. Born John Innes, he inherited the family estate near

Forres Forres (; gd, Farrais) is a town and former royal burgh in the north of Scotland on the Moray coast, approximately northeast of Inverness and west of Elgin. Forres has been a winner of the Scotland in Bloom award on several occasions. There a ...

in Scotland, and moved there in 1862, becoming John Brodie Innes of Milton Brodie.

Early life

John Innes was born in 1815, the son of Colonel John Innes (1763–1836) of Ipstone (or Ibstone) House and Mary Leslie (died 1857) of Burdsbank. Ipstone House is located in the parish of Ipstone (

Ibstone Ibstone (previously Ipstone) is a village and civil parish within Wycombe district in Buckinghamshire, England. It is in the Chiltern Hills on the border with Oxfordshire, about south of Stokenchurch. The village name is Anglo Saxon in ori ...

), which lies mostly in the county of Oxfordshire but also partly in the county of Buckinghamshire, England. The boundary line of these two counties passes straight through the parlour of Ipstone House. John Brodie-Innes married Eliza Mary Laidlaw (31 July 31, 1817–6 March 6, 1909) in 1847.

Church career in Kent

John Innes became Curate of Farnborough in

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

in 1842, and made the acquaintance of Darwin who moved to Down House in the nearby village of

in that year. Innes became

perpetual curate Perpetual curate was a class of resident parish priest or incumbent curate within the United Church of England and Ireland (name of the combined Anglican churches of England and Ireland from 1800 to 1871). The term is found in common use mainly du ...

of Downe in 1846, and hence

vicar A vicar (; Latin: '' vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English pre ...

in 1868–1869. Darwin became involved with local charitable organisations including the Coal and Clothing Fund, a savings club to which he made honorary contributions and which he later ran from 1848 to 1869, taking over from Innes.Darwin at Downe
,

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

archived 13 February 2009 Darwin also co-founded a Friendly Club with Innes, to which local people subscribed for assurance of assistance in times of financial need, and served as its treasurer for over 30 years, even hosting the Friendly Club's annual meeting on the lawn of Down House, the

Darwin family Darwin may refer to: Common meanings * Charles Darwin (1809–1882), English naturalist and writer, best known as the originator of the theory of biological evolution by natural selection * Darwin, Northern Territory, a territorial capital city i ...

's home.

Milton Brodie, Forres

Brodie Innes continued to correspond with Darwin after 1862 when Innes moved to take up an inherited estate at Milton Brodie,

in Scotland, and as required by the

entail In English common law, fee tail or entail is a form of trust established by deed or settlement which restricts the sale or inheritance of an estate in real property and prevents the property from being sold, devised by will, or otherwise alien ...

on the estate, changed his name to reflect his position as chief of the Brodies of the Milton branch of

Clan Brodie Clan Brodie is a Scottish clan whose origins are uncertain. The first known Brodie chiefs were the Thanes of Brodie and Dyke in Morayshire. The Brodies were present in several clan conflicts, and during the civil war were ardent covenanters ...

. In a letter written to Darwin in December 1878, Brodie Innes explains how he described Darwin to bishops at a Church Congress in Dundee:

"I have the pleasure of the intimate friendship of one of the very first Naturalists in Europe. He is a most accurate observer, and never states anything as a fact which he has not most thoroughly investigated. He is a man of the most perfect moral character, and his scrupulous regard for the strictest truth is above that of almost all men I know. I am quite persuaded that if on any morning he met with a fact which would clearly contradict one of his cherished theories he would not let the sun set before he made it known. I never saw a word in his writings which was an attack on Religion. He follows his own course as a Naturalist and leaves Moses to take care of himself."Darwin Correspondence Project

The last letter between the two listed by the Darwin Correspondence Project is dated 1881. Brodie Innes was the Chaplain to the Bishop of Moray from 1861 to 1880 and again from 1886 to 1894. His son was the barrister and novelist

John William Brodie-Innes John William Brodie-Innes (10 March 1848 – 8 December 1923) was a leading member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn's Amen-Ra Temple in Edinburgh. J.W. Brodie-Innes was born at Downe in Kent, where his Scottish born father Rev. John Brod ...

Portrayal in film

In the 2009 film ''

Creation Creation may refer to: Religion *''Creatio ex nihilo'', the concept that matter was created by God out of nothing * Creation myth, a religious story of the origin of the world and how people first came to inhabit it * Creationism, the belief tha ...

'' the Reverend John Inness was played by actor

Jeremy Northam Jeremy Philip Northam (born 1 December 1961) is an English actor and singer. After a number of television roles, he earned attention as Mr. Knightley in the 1996 film adaptation of Jane Austen's '' Emma''. He has appeared in the films ''An Idea ...

.''Creation'' (2009)
on the

Internet Movie Database IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

References

External links

Innes' Recollections of DarwinLetters between Innes and Darwin on the Darwin Correspondence Project websiteDarwin correspondnce with Innes on The Complete Work of Charles Darwin Online'Darwin and the Clergyman' Article by Samantha Evans in Seed Magazine February 12 2009
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brodie Innes, John 1817 births 1894 deaths 19th-century Scottish Episcopalian priests Charles Darwin