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HISTORY
HMS Beagle
was a Cherokee-class 10-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy. The
vessel, constructed at a cost of £7,803, was launched on 11 May
1820 from the Woolwich Dockyard on the River Thames. In July of
that year she took part in a fleet review celebrating the
coronation of King George IV of the United Kingdom: allegedly,
to salute at the coronation she became the first full rigged
man-of-war to sail under the old London Bridge. After that there
was no immediate need for Beagle so she "lay in ordinary",
moored afloat but without masts or rigging. She was then adapted
as a survey barque and took part in three expeditions. On the
second survey voyage the young naturalist Charles Darwin was on
board, and his work made Beagle one of the most famous ships in
history
First voyage (1826–1830)
On 27 September 1825 Beagle docked at Woolwich for repairs and
fitted out for her new duties at a total cost of £5,913. Her
guns were reduced from ten cannons to six and a mizzen mast was
added to improve her maneuverability, thereby changing her from
a brig to a bark (or barque).
Beagle set sail from Plymouth on 22 May 1826 on her first
voyage, under the command of Captain Pringle Stokes. The mission
was to accompany the larger ship HMS Adventure (380 tons) on a
hydrographic survey of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, under the
overall command of the Australian Captain Phillip Parker King,
Commander and Surveyor.
Faced with the more difficult part of the survey in the desolate
waters of Tierra del Fuego, Captain Pringle Stokes fell into a
deep depression. At Port Famine on the Strait of Magellan he
locked himself in his cabin for 14 days, then after getting
over-excited and talking of preparing for the next cruise, shot
himself on 2 August 1828. Following four days of delirium Stokes
recovered slightly, but then his condition deteriorated and he
died on 12 August 1828. Captain Parker King then replaced Stokes
with the First Lieutenant of the Beagle, Lieutenant W.G. Skyring
as commander, and both ships sailed to Montevideo. On 13 October
King sailed the Adventure to Rio de Janeiro for refitting and
provisions. During this work Rear Admiral Sir Robert Otway,
commander in chief of the South American station, arrived aboard
HMS Ganges and announced his decision that the Beagle was also
to be brought to Montevideo for repairs, and that he intended to
supersede Skyring. When the Beagle arrived, Otway put the ship
under the command of his aide, Flag Lieutenant Robert FitzRoy.
The 23-year-old aristocrat FitzRoy proved an able commander and
meticulous surveyor. In one incident a group of Fuegians stole a
ship's boat, and FitzRoy took their families on board as
hostages. Eventually he held two men, a girl and a boy, who was
given the name of Jemmy Button, and these four native Fuegians
were taken back with them when the Beagle returned to England on
14 October 1830.
During this survey, the Beagle Channel was identified and named
after the ship
Second voyage (1831–1836)
FitzRoy had been given reason to hope that the South American
Survey would be continued under his command, but when the Lords
of the Admiralty appeared to abandon the plan, he made
alternative arrangements to return the Fuegians. A kind uncle
heard of this and contacted the Admiralty. Soon afterwards
FitzRoy heard that he was to be appointed commander of HMS
Chanticleer to go to Tierra del Fuego, but due to her poor
condition Beagle was substituted for the voyage. FitzRoy was
re-appointed as commander on 27 June 1831 and the Beagle was
commissioned on 4 July 1831 under his command, with Lieutenants
John Clements Wickham and Bartholomew James Sulivan.
Longitudinal section of HMS Beagle as of 1832
Beagle was immediately taken into dock at Devonport for
extensive rebuilding and refitting. As she required a new deck,
FitzRoy had the upper-deck raised considerably, by 8 inches (200
mm) aft and 12 inches (300 mm) forward. The Cherokee-class ships
had the reputation of being "coffin brigs," which handled badly
and were prone to sinking; the raised deck gave the Beagle
better handling and made her less liable to become top-heavy and
capsize by helping the decks to drain more quickly so that less
water would collect in the gunwales. Additional sheathing added
to the hull added about seven tons to her burthen and perhaps
fifteen to her displacement, and the ship was one of the first
to be fitted with the lightning conductor invented by William
Snow Harris. FitzRoy spared no expense in her fitting out, which
included 22 chronometers, and five examples of the Sympiesometer,
a kind of mercury-free barometer patented by Alexander Adie
which was favoured by FitzRoy as giving the accurate readings
required by the Admiralty.
FitzRoy had found a need for expert advice on geology during the
first voyage, and had resolved that if on a similar expedition,
he would "endeavour to carry out a person qualified to examine
the land; while the officers, and myself, would attend to
hydrography. Command in that era could involve stress and
loneliness, as shown by the suicide of Captain Stokes, and
FitzRoy's own uncle Viscount Castlereagh had committed suicide
under stress of overwork. His attempts to get a friend to
accompany him fell through, and he asked his friend and
superior, Captain Francis Beaufort, to seek a gentleman
naturalist as a self-financing passenger who would give him
company during the voyage. A sequence of inquiries led to
Charles Darwin, a young gentleman on his way to becoming a rural
clergyman, joining the voyage.
The Beagle Laid Ashore drawn by Conrad Martens (1834) and
engraved by Thomas Landseer (1838)
Beagle was originally scheduled to leave on 24 October 1831 but
because of delays in her preparations the departure was delayed
until December. She attempted to depart on 10 December but ran
into bad weather. Finally, on the morning of 27 December, the
Beagle left her anchorage in the Barn Pool, under Mount
Edgecumbe on the west side of Plymouth Sound, on what was to
become a ground breaking scientific expedition. After completing
extensive surveys in South America she returned via New Zealand,
Sydney, Hobart Town (6 February 1836), to Falmouth, Cornwall,
England on 2 October 1836.
Darwin had kept a diary of his experiences, and rewrote this as
the book titled Journal and Remarks, published in 1839 as the
third volume of the official account of the expedition. This
travelogue and scientific journal was widely popular, and was
reprinted many times with various titles, becoming known as The
Voyage of the Beagle.
Third voyage (1837–1843)
Six months later, Beagle set off in 1837 to survey large parts
of the coast of Australia under the command of Commander John
Clements Wickham, who had been a Lieutenant on the second
voyage, with assistant surveyor Lieutenant John Lort Stokes who
had been a Midshipman on the first voyage of Beagle, then mate
and assistant surveyor on the second voyage (no relation to
Pringle Stokes). They started with the western coast between the
Swan River (modern Perth, Australia) and the Fitzroy River,
Western Australia, then surveyed both shores of the Bass Strait
at the southeast corner of the continent. To aid Beagle in her
surveying operations in Bass Strait, the Colonial cutter
Vansittart, of Van Diemen’s Land, was most liberally lent by His
Excellency Sir John Franklin, and placed under the command of Mr
Charles Codrington Forsyth, the Senior Mate, assisted by Mr
Pasco, another of her Mates. In May 1839 they sailed north to
survey the shores of the Arafura Sea opposite Timor. When
Wickham fell ill and resigned, the command was taken over in
March 1841 by Lieutenant John Lort Stokes who continued the
survey. The third voyage was completed in 1843.
Numerous places around the coast were named by Wickham, and
subsequently by Stokes when he became captain, often honouring
eminent people or the members of the crew. On 9 October 1839
Wickham named Port Darwin, which was first sighted by Stokes, in
honour of their former shipmate Charles Darwin. They were
reminded of him (and his "geologising") by the discovery there
of a new fine-grained sandstone. A settlement there became the
town of Palmerston in 1869, and was renamed Darwin in 1911.
Final years
In 1845 Beagle was refitted as a static coastguard watch vessel
like many similar watch ships stationed in rivers and harbours
throughout the nation. She was transferred to HM Customs and
Excise to control smuggling on the Essex coast in the navigable
waterways beyond the north bank of the Thames Estuary. She was
moored mid-river in the River Roach which forms part of an
extensive maze of waterways and marshes known as The River
Crouch and River Roach Tidal River System, located around and to
the south and west of Burnham-on-Crouch. This large maritime
area has a tidal coastline of 243 km (151 miles), part of
Essex's 565 km (351 miles) of coastline - the largest coastline
in the United Kingdom. In 1851, oyster companies and traders who
cultivated and harvested the "Walflete" or "Walfleet" oyster
Ostrea edulis, petitioned for the Customs and Excise watch
vessel WV-7 (ex HMS Beagle) to be removed as she was obstructing
the river and its oyster-beds. In the 1851 Navy List dated 25
May, it showed her renamed as Southend "W.V. No. 7" at Paglesham.
In 1870, she was sold to "Messrs Murray and Trainer" for
breaking up.
Possible resting place
Investigations started in 2000 by a team led by Dr Robert
Prescott of the University of St Andrews found documents
confirming that "W.V. 7" was Beagle, and noted a vessel matching
her size shown midstream on the River Roach (in Paglesham Reach)
on the 1847 hydrographic survey chart. A later chart showed a
nearby indentation to the north bank of Paglesham Reach near the
Eastend Wharf and near Waterside Farm. This could have been a
dock for W.V. 7 - Beagle. Site investigations found an area of
marshy ground some 15 ft (5 m) deep on the tidal river-bank,
about 150 metres west of the boat-house. This discovery matched
the chart position and many fragments of pottery of the correct
period were found in the same area.
An atomic dielectric resonance survey carried out in November
2003 found traces of timbers forming the size and shape of the
lower hull, indicating a substantial amount of timbers from
below the waterline still in place. An old anchor of 1841
pattern was excavated. It was also found that the 1871 census
recorded a new farmhouse in the name of William Murray and
Thomas Rainer, leading to speculation that the merchant's name
was a misprint for T. Rainer. The farmhouse was demolished in
the 1940s, but a nearby boathouse incorporated timbers matching
knee timbers used in Beagle. Two more large anchors similar to
the one excavated from the ship's present location are known to
have been found in neighbouring villages. It is believed that
there were four anchors in the ship.
Their investigations featured in a BBC Television programme
which showed how each watch ship would have accommodated seven
coastguard officers, drawn from other areas to minimise
collusion with the locals. Each officer had about three rooms to
house his family, forming a small community. They would use
small boats to intercept smugglers, and the investigators found
a causeway giving access at low tide across the soft mud of the
river bank. Apparently the next coastguard station along was
Kangaroo, a sister ship of Beagle.
Replica
On 31 December 2011 the Nao Victoria Museum in Punta Arenas
announced the building of the first full-size replica of HMS
Beagle. The construction began on 1 November 2012, using
Nothofagus dombeyi timber from the local rainforest. In 2013 the
Chilean national press started to get interest in the work in
progress. |
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