Darwin died just before 4 pm on 19 April 1882, not of his lifetime illness but apparently of a heart attack. Surprisingly no one seems to have considered whether he might have had a perforated peptic ulcer that would explain the severe pain and haematemesis he had at the time of death.

Charles Darwin passed away on April 19, 1882, at his home, Down House, in Kent, England. While his family initially intended for him to be buried in the local village churchyard of St. Mary's, a public and scientific movement quickly mobilized to honor him with a national funeral. Darwin was ultimately buried in Westminster Abbey on April 26, 1882, a testament to his monumental impact on human thought despite his well-known agnosticism. His body was transported from Down House to the Abbey, where a grand state funeral was attended by many of the leading scientists, politicians, and intellectuals of the day. He was laid to rest in the North Aisle of the Nave, just a few feet away from the grave of Sir Isaac Newton. This act of burial in the heart of the Anglican Church was a powerful symbolic reconciliation between his revolutionary theories of evolution and the national religious establishment.