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Cherokee class 10-gun brig of the Royal Navy, named after the beagle, a breed
of dog. She was launched on 11 May 1820 from the Woolwich Dockyard on the River
Thames, at a cost of £7,803. In July of that year she took part in a fleet
review celebrating the coronation of King George IV of the United Kingdom in
which she was the first ship to sail under the new London Bridge. After that
there was no immediate need for Beagle so she was kept in reserve for five years
and "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
would eventually make the Beagle one of the most famous ships in history.
First Voyage
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 mizzenmast was added to improve her maneuverability, thereby
changing her from a brig to a bark (or barque).
Beagle set sail on 22 May 1826 for her first voyage, under the command of
Captain Pringle Stokes. The mission was to accompany the larger ship HMS
Adventure (380 tons) on a hydro graphic survey of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego,
under the overall command of the Australian Captain Philip Parker King,[1]
Commander and Surveyor.[2]
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 on 2 August 1828 shot himself and died in delirium 12 days later.[3]
Captain Parker King then replaced Stokes with the Executive Officer of Beagle,
Lieutenant W.G. Skyring. They sailed to Rio de Janeiro where on 15 December 1828
Rear Admiral Sir Robert Otway, commander in chief of the South American station
aboard HMS Ganges, named as (temporary) Captain of the Beagle 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 Plymouth, England on 14
October 1830.
Second voyage
It was originally intended that Chanticleer would make the second South American
Survey, but due to her poor condition Beagle was substituted for the voyage.
FitzRoy had been considering how to return the Fuegians who had trained as
missionaries, and on 25 June 1831 he was re-appointed as commander. The Beagle
was commissioned on 4 July 1831 under the command of Captain Robert FitzRoy,
with Lieutenants John Clements Wickham and Bartholomew James Sulivan. She
was immediately taken into dock 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. By helping the decks to drain more quickly with less water collecting
in the gunnels, the raised deck gave the Beagle better handling and made her
less liable to become top-heavy and capsize. Additional sheathing added to the
hull added about 7 tons to her displacement. 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 and
favoured by FitzRoy as giving the accurate readings required by the Admiralty.
Particularly in the light of the fate of Stokes and the suicide of his own
uncle, FitzRoy was concerned about the lonely position of a captain at that
time. 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 passenger
who would act as a companion as well as having opportunities as a naturalist.
This led to Charles Darwin joining the voyage. Beagle was originally scheduled
to leave on October 24, 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 December 27 at 2:00 pm, the Beagle left
Plymouth harbour on what was to become a ground breaking scientific expedition.
After completing extensive surveys in South America she returned via New Zealand
to Falmouth, Cornwall, England on 2 October 1836.
Third voyage
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 the 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. In May 1839 they
sailed north to survey the shores of the Arafura Sea opposite Timor. Wickham
named the Beagle Gulf and Port Darwin, which was first sighted by Stokes and
which later gave its name to the city of Darwin, Australia. 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.
Final years
In 1845 the Beagle was refitted as a static coastguard watch vessel and
transferred to Customs and Excise to control smuggling on the Essex coast to the
north bank of the Thames estuary. She was moored mid-river on the River Roach
which forms part of a maze of waterways in the marshes south of
Burnham-on-Crouch. In 1851 oyster companies and traders petitioned for her to be
removed as she was obstructing the river, and the 1851 Navy List dated 25 May
showed her renamed as Southend "W.V. No. 7" at Paglesham. In 1870, she was sold
to local scrap merchants "Murray and Trainer" for breaking up.
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 the
Beagle, and noted a vessel matching her size shown midstream on the 1847
hydrographic survey chart. A later chart showed a nearby indentation to the
north bank which could have been a dock for the Beagle. Site investigations
found an area of marshy ground some 15 ft (5 m) deep matching this chart
position, with many fragments of pottery of the correct period.
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 the Beagle. Further investigations are
proposed.
Their investigations featured in a BBC Television programme which showed how
each watch ship would have accommodated 7 coastguard officers, drawn from other
areas to minimise collusion with the locals. Each officer had about 3 rooms to
house their 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 the Kangaroo, a sister ship of the Beagle.
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