The keel of HMS Beagle was laid down in 1818 and the ship was completed in 1820. She was originally designed as a 10 gun brig-sloop of the Cherokee class, but was altered in 1825. A mizzen mast was added and her gun allocation was reduced; she was now considered a bark. The Beagle made three noteworthy voyages during her fifty year career. In her first voyage, 1826, she accompanied HMS Adventure to South America for a hydrographic survey of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. The second voyage began in 1831 and was under the command of Captain Fitzroy. This voyage took an unknown naturalist, Charles Darwin, around the world. Darwin emerged from the five year journey with enough material to later formulate his theory of evolution. The final voyage of 1837 took the Beagle on a survey of Australia. She was decommissioned in 1845 and broken up in 1870.
