A century and a half after Darwin put forward the theory of natural selection, Steve Jones explains the power of his idea - and the stink it caused

In 1842, Queen Victoria went to London Zoo. She was not amused: “The orang-outang is too wonderful… he is frightfully, and painfully, and disagreeably human.” A hundred and thirty-seven years later, David Attenborough entranced the world when he cavorted with gorillas in Life on Earth.

What amazed everyone, once again, was just how human they seemed - and, for the gorillas watching, how happy the famous presenter was to be checked for fleas. Far from finding that frightful, most people (and, perhaps, most gorillas) were charmed and delighted.

That great post-Victorian shift in attitude came from that most Victorian figure, Charles Darwin. A hundred and fifty years ago this month, one great stink was about to replace another. In June 1858, the London sky burnt furiously and the sewage in the Thames began to reek, so much so that the House of Commons had its curtains soaked in chemicals to keep the smell at bay.

Soon, the rains came and the Great Stench cleared, but on July 1 an overheated group of moustachioed men met at the Linnean Society to consider important business: to elect a vice-president, to accept a book on grasses, and to read aloud a note, On the Tendency of Species to Form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection by a Mr Darwin and a Mr Wallace (neither of whom was present).

The event had no impact (there was only one comment: that “all that was new was false, and what was true was old”). But a year later came The Origin of Species, this time written by Darwin without the aid of Alfred Russell Wallace.

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