Voyage of the Beagle

Charles Darwin adored the tiny, mahogany rich ship that carried him around the world and made his name, writes Sara Wheeler

- Sara Wheeler

Two hundred years ago this May, a new 235-ton brig slipped into the Thames at London’s Woolwich Dockyard. She was a petite 90 feet, a gun sloop of the Royal Navy Cherokee class, a common type of warship. But HMS Beagle was to become one of the most famous ships of all time. Charles Darwin sailed in her on his epic five-year voyage around the world. When he returned, he published On The Origin of Species, a book that rocked Victorian England and changed natural science forever.

Two months after the launch, the Beagle sailed upriver to join the festivities for the coronation of George IV (his obese majesty was half an hour late for the service). The Navy subsequently fitted her out as a survey vessel and dispatched her on a global voyage. This first expedition was a success, despite the suicide of captain Pringle Stokes.

On the Beagle’s return in 1830, the Admiralty decided to commission another circumnavigation to chart the South American coast further and to obtain a more accurate fixing of longitude; the chosen ship was HMS Chanticleer. But that Chaucerian brig was in a poor condition, so the still youthful Beagle again moved into history’s view.

The slight, patrician figure of Captain Robert FitzRoy was again at the helm (he had taken over from the benighted Stokes on the first voyage). Through a more or less random connection, on 5th September 1831 FitzRoy summoned the 22-year-old Darwin and offered him the post of (unpaid) onboard naturalist.