John Clements Wickham was a Scottish explorer, naval officer, magistrate and administrator. He was first lieutenant on HMS Beagle during its second survey mission, 1831–1836, under captain Robert FitzRoy. The young naturalist and geologist Charles Darwin was a supernumerary on the ship, and his journal was published as The Voyage of the Beagle. After that expedition, Wickham was promoted to Commander and made captain of the Beagle on its third voyage, from 1837 and conducted various maritime expeditions and hydrographic surveys along the Australian coastline.
Portrait of John Clements Wickham
Captain Wickham, c. 1820
A commemorative plaque at Newstead House
HMS Beagle was a Cherokee-class 10-gun brig-sloop of the Royal Navy, one of more than 100 ships of this class. The vessel, constructed at a cost of £7,803, was launched on 11 May 1820 from the Woolwich Dockyard on the River Thames. Later reports say the ship took part in celebrations of the coronation of King George IV of the United Kingdom, passing under the old London Bridge, and was the first rigged man-of-war afloat upriver of the bridge. There was no immediate need for Beagle, so she "lay in ordinary", moored afloat but without masts or rigging. She was then adapted as a survey barque and took part in three survey expeditions.
Beagle being hailed by native Fuegians during the survey of Tierra del Fuego, painted by Conrad Martens who became ship's artist in 1833
Longitudinal section of HMS Beagle as of 1832
Admiralty Chart of the Galapagos Islands, one of the charts resulting from Fitzroy's hydrographic surveys
In 1837 HMS Beagle set off on a survey of Australia, and is shown here in an 1841 watercolour by Captain Owen Stanley of Beagle's sister ship HMS Britomart.