Reverend Thomas Malthus
(Thomas) Robert Malthus (he went by his middle name) was born in "the Rookery", a country estate in Dorking, Surrey, in 1766.
He was the second son of Daniel Malthus, a country gentleman. Malthus entered Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1784 and was ordained a minister of the Church of England in 1788. He earned his M.A. in 1791.
After Darwin returned to England, when he was reading An Essay in the Principle of Population by Thomas Malthus, written in 1798.
In the essay Malthus stated that a population would increase indefinitely unless it was kept in check by shortages of resources (food, water, living space..), and that animals competed for these things.
Darwin understood that living organisms produce more offspring than can be normally expected to survive. He also understood that the natural resources Malthus mentioned were limited.
The organisms with the structures and way of life that suited them to make best use of the resources survive long enough to reproduce. This was the basis of Darwin's theory of natural selection.
He died in 1834.
