HMS Beagle

HMS Beagle – A Potted History

This Cherokee-class 10-gun Royal Navy brig-sloop was built at a cost of £7,803 in 1820 – the equivalent of £327,101.76 in today’s money, according to the National Archives currency converter – and was launched on the River Thames from the Woolwich Dockyard and was not the first ship to bear this name. After 5 years in which the HMS Beagle ‘lay in ordinary’, it docked at Woolwich for repairs, her guns were reduced to six out of 10 cannons, and she was given a mizzen mast, thereby transforming her from brig to bark.

Her first voyage in 1826 under Captain Pringle Stokes was not necessarily a successful mission. Having set sail from Plymouth to accompany the HMS Adventure, its captain fell into a deep depression at Port Famine, locked himself into a cabin and shot himself in 1828, eventually dying 10 days later. The Beagle then sailed to Montevideo following the HMS Adventure, where Rear-Admiral Sir Robert Otway put the ship under his aide’s command. Flag Lieutenant Robert Fitzroy, the new commander proved a capable surveyor and it was during this survey that the Beagle Channel was found and given the ship’s name.

After undergoing extensive repairs and upgrades, the barque was ready to set sail in December 1831, on a journey that should have taken only 2 years. Aboard the ship, a 22-year-old naturalist whose company the captain had asked for to ease the stress and loneliness that such voyages entail; Charles Darwin embarked on what would become a five-year ocean voyage aboard the HMS Beagle, from December 1831 to December 1836, the boat’s second expedition as a survey barque. The Natural History Museum offers a captivating interactive virtual journey re-enactment on its website. The records and collections Darwin accumulated on this expedition were compiled in his book entitled ‘Journal and Remarks’ published in 1839, and then reprinted several times over and finally becoming known to the general public as ‘The Voyage of the Beagle’. It fuelled his emerging ideas concerning evolution by natural selection, finally forming the basis of his renowned 1859 book entitled ‘On the Origin of Species’ and of his theory of atoll evolution. The Beagle was skilfully portrayed in Conrad Martens’s watercolours and they are still available to the public at the National Maritime Museum.

Under Commander John Clements Wickham’s command, the HMS Beagle set off again in 1837 to survey Australian the coastline. He named Port Darwin after his former shipmate. The settlement of Palmerston was also named Darwin in 1911. After resigning due to illness, Wickham was replaced by Lieutenant John Lort Stokes, who completed the voyage in 1843. The survey saw another one of Mother Nature’s creations taking on the name of the ship, namely Beagle Gulf.

After having been refitted as a coastguard watch vessel in 1845, she was used by HM Customs and Excise on smuggling control missions and renamed WV-7 but was removed in 1851 as a result of the oyster traders’ petition, which stated that it obstructed the oyster beds. She then took on the name of Southend ‘W.V. No.7’ and was sold for spare parts.

Her remains are said to be spread over several villages around Paglesham Reach on the River Roach, near the Eastend Wharf. Several of her anchors were found, along with knee timbers and pottery and it is believed that the Beagle may have belonged to farmers William Murray and Thomas Rainer when she was taken apart.

‘Darwin’s ship’, as most people call it, the Beagle is a vessel that has opened the doors to human understanding of evolution and has paved the way for many geological and biological discoveries that have helped shape society as we know it, yet it is perhaps more appreciated today than it was by its contemporaries, as recent international projects such as the HMS Beagle Project will testify.

For more information on Darwin visit the NHM

Articles related to HMS Beagle: Shipping Forecast, Robert Fitzroy

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