Model of HMS BEAGLE

HMS BEAGLE is best known as the ship on which naturalist Charles Darwin sailed during 1831 to 1836. As a survey ship the BEAGLE undertook significant work in Australian waters.

The 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 BEAGLE’s second voyage. He was accompanied by assistant surveyor Lieutenant John Lort Stokes (no relation to Pringle Stokes) who had been a Midshipman on the first voyage of the BEAGLE, then mate and assistant surveyor on the second voyage.

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 the 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.