John Stevens Henslow was a naturalist, a Cambridge academic, most remembered as a friend and mentor of Charles Darwin, inspiring him with a passion for natural history, proposing him to sail on the HMS Beagle as the naturalist on its five-year voyage, and promoting Darwin’s work as he developed his theory of evolution. Within Cambridge, he was the driving force behind setting up the Botanic Garden in its current location, and was also notable as one of the founders (together with Adam Sedgwick and Edward Clarke) of the Cambridge Philosophical Society in 1819.

Adam Sedgwick was one of the founders of modern geology. He is known particularly for his work on classifying rocks from the Devonian and Cambrian eras, and his work was central to developing understanding of the geological time-line. He was also deeply involved in university teaching and academic structures, providing inspiration for the development of science courses in Cambridge and elsewhere. Within Cambridge his legacy is commemorated in the Sedgwick Museum which houses a huge collection of rocks and fossils. Mount Sedgwick in British Columbia, Canada is named after him.