HMS Beagle Timeline

FitzRoy was re-appointed as commander on 27 June 1831 and Beagle was commissioned on 4 July 1831 under his command, with Lieutenants John Clements Wickham and Bartholomew James Sulivan.

Image source: Robert FitzRoy

Beagle was originally scheduled to leave on 24 October 1831, but because of delays in her preparations the departure was delayed until December.

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 during the voyage, and combined this with details from his scientific notes as the book titled Journal and Remarks, published in 1839 as the third volume of the official account of the expedition.

They left Woolwich on 9 June 1837, towed by HM Steamer Boxer, and after reaching Plymouth spent the remainder of the month adjusting their instruments.

They set off from Plymouth Sound on the morning of 5 July 1837, and sailed south with stops for observations at Tenerife, Bahia and Cape Town.

The Beagle reached the Swan River (modern Perth, Western Australia) on 15 November 1837 as part of her surveying mission in Australian waters.

In May 1839, the Beagle sailed north to survey the shores of the Arafura Sea opposite Timor.

On 9 October 1839 Wickham named Port Darwin, which was first sighted by Stokes, in honour of their former shipmate Charles Darwin. A settlement there became the town of Palmerston in 1869, and was renamed Darwin in 1911.

Image source: Darwin, Northern Territory

When Wickham fell ill and resigned, the command was taken over in March 1841 by Lieutenant John Lort Stokes who continued the survey.

Image source: John Lort Stokes

The third voyage of HMS Beagle was completed in 1843, concluding her years of survey work in Australian waters.

In 1845, Beagle was refitted as a static coastguard watch vessel like many similar watch ships stationed in rivers and harbours throughout the nation.

In 1851, oyster companies and traders who cultivated and harvested the "Walflete" or "Walfleet" oyster 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 "Southend W.V."

In 1870, she was sold to "Messrs Murray and Trainer" to be broken up, ending her long service life.

Investigations started in 2000 by a team led by 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 Essex (in Paglesham Reach) on the 1847 hydrographic survey chart.

Surveys in November 2003 showed that there are the remains of substantial material within the dock that could be parts of the ship itself, and 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 they were the 1870 purchasers of the ship, "Messrs Murray and Trainer".

Research in 2025 has revealed that Messrs. Murray and Trainer bought two naval vessels at auction in London in May 1870. They had also bought a 600-ton iron-hulled ship which they were in the process of breaking up in January 1871, when they were prosecuted by Thames Conservancy for alleged pollution of the river. The case was heard in Greenwich Police Court and reported in the Kentish Mercury of 11 February 1871, also recorded in the Thames Conservancy Minutes at London Docklands Museum.