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19 October 2023 — Remembering the Career of HMS Beagle
Many maritime history enthusiasts can name HMS Beagle as the ship associated with the explorations of Charles Darwin, but did you know that the little ship started out in a genuinely lackluster fashion? HMS Beagle was built at Woolwich Dockyard and launched on the Thames on 11 May 1820. She was the 41st of the 107 ships built of the Cherokee class, a design by Surveyor of the Navy Sir Henry Peake. Ninety feet long, these brig-sloops carried ten guns. They were derided as “half-tide rocks”—their high bulwarks trapped water on the main deck and made it difficult for it to drain away—and “coffin brigs,” as 26 of the 107 wrecked or sank.
The Royal Navy also didn’t seem to have much use for Beagle. Indeed, John Lort Stokes, who started out on Beagle as a midshipman and would serve aboard Beagle for 18 years, would write that “her first exploit was the novel and unprecedented one of passing through old London bridge—(the first rigged man-of-war that had ever floated so high upon the waters of the Thames)—in order to salute at the coronation of King George the Fourth,” but subsequently she languished in Woolwich until 1825, when she was finally commissioned by Commander Pringle Stokes to accompany HMS Adventure on a hydrographic survey of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. In preparation for this journey, a mizzen mast was added to her rig, a poop deck was built on, and her guns were reduced from ten to six.
During the voyage, at Port Famine, Captain Stokes was overcome with depression, shot himself, and died ten days later. After the ship put in at Montevideo, command of Beagle was given to Flag Lieutenant Robert FitzRoy. After that expedition returned to the Great Britain, FitzRoy and Beagle were assigned to another hydrographic expedition.
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 | The website CloudTour.TV provides a virtual tour of HMS Beagle, drawn from the information we have today about the vessel. | |
FitzRoy decided to secure the participation of someone in addition to his regular crew for the voyage:
Anxious that no opportunity of collecting useful information, during the voyage, should be lost; I proposed to the Hydrographer that some well-educated and scientific person should be sought for who would willingly share such accommodations as I had to offer, in order to profit by the opportunity of visiting distant countries yet little known. Captain Beaufort approved of the suggestion, and wrote to Professor Peacock, of Cambridge, who consulted with a friend, Professor Henslow, and he named Mr. Charles Darwin, grandson of Dr. Darwin the poet, as a young man of promising ability, extremely fond of geology, and indeed all branches of natural history. In consequence an offer was made to Mr. Darwin to be my guest on board, which he accepted conditionally; permission was obtained for his embarkation, and an order given by the Admiralty that he should be borne on the ship's books for provisions.
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 | A watercolor of Darwin, by G. Richmond (PD). He wrote in his diary: This has been a very important day in the annals of the Beagle; at one oclock she was loosed from the moorings & sailed about a mile to Barnett pool. Here she will remain till the day|10| of sailing arrives. This little sail was to me very interesting, everything so new & different to what one has ever seen, the Coxswains piping, the manning the yards, the men working at the hawsers to the sound of a fife, but nothing is so striking as the rapidity & decision of the orders & the alertness with which they are obeyed.—There remains very little to be done to make all ready for sailing. All the stores are completed & yesterday between 5 & 6 thousand canisters of preserved meat were stowed away.—Not one inch of room is lost, the hold would contain scarcely another bag of bread. My notions of the inside of a ship were about as indefinite as those of some men on the inside of a man, viz a large cavity containing air, water & food mingled in hopeless confusion.— | |
Despite the glowing recommendations, Darwin almost didn’t get the job. FitzRoy was a student of the pseudoscience of physiognomy, believing that one’s physical characteristics belied their personality. The captain felt that Darwin’s nose betrayed a weakness and lack of determination. Thankfully, Darwin was able to persuade FitzRoy to the contrary in their interview discussion. Just imagine: Darwin’s “beak” almost pre-empted his journey to the Galápagos Islands, where he observed the variations in finches’ beaks, which figured so prominently in his later theories! | |
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To ensure the success of the voyage, FitzRoy pulled out all the stops. He ordered modifications of the Beagle, including elevating the deck by a foot, and fitting her with state-of-the-art lightning conductors designed by W. S. Harris. He replaced the ship’s iron cannons with brass ones, paying out of his own pocket, to eliminate the iron equipment’s interference with the magnetic surveying instruments. Beagle was to carry FitzRoy, Darwin, and the crew on a journey of nearly five years, returning to Great Britain in 1836. Darwin recounted his experiences in The Voyage of the Beagle.
Beagle was dispatched on its third hydrographic mission in 1837, under the command of Commander John Clements Wickham, and later on the voyage by John Lort Stokes when Wickham resigned for health reasons. She would continue on to explore the coasts of Australia. In 1845, two years after her return to Great Britain, her masts and rigging were removed and she was renamed Watch Vessel 7. She was stationed in the estuary near Essex, essentially a coast guard post in the effort against smugglers. In 1870 she was finally sold, most likely for scrap. The site of the dock built for her coast guard days is a heritage site today.
Extra Credit
Darwin Online
HMS Beagle, 1820–1870: Voyages Summarized, Research and Reconstruction (SH 31)
HMS Beagle Revisited (SH 83)
Sea History Today is written by Shelley Reid, NMHS senior staff writer. Past issues can be read online by clicking here.
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