A WELL PRESENTED AND DETAILED 1:36 SCALE MODEL OF H.M.S. BEAGLE CELEBRATED FOR CHARLES DARWIN'S VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY, 1831–1836

the 36in. planked and pinned hull ebonised above the waterline, the white gun strake with gun ports with split lids, finely carved beagle hound figurehead, boomkins, planked decks with details including anchors with bound wooden stocks, belaying rails with pins, turntable carronade on foredeck, main deck with winches, fitted ship's boats, gratings, naval guns in carriages, deck lights, covered companionway with panelling and benches, ship's helm with turned wooden spokes, binnacle compasses, bound first stage masts with standing rigging and ebonised braced supports and top trees, mounted on candle stand to display base, overall measurements -- 26 x 45 x 14in. (66 x 114 x 35.5cm.)

One of 115 'Cherokee' Class 10-gun brigs, Beagle had already been converted to a barque rig for her first voyage of exploration between 1826-30 during which her captain, Pringle Stokes, under stress, committed suicide and command was assumed by Lt Robert Fitzroy. Fitzroy was the natural choice of commander in 1831 when the Admiralty resumed the work of the first expedition, this time accompanied by an obscure botany student called Charles Darwin whose professor considered him not a finished naturalist, but amply qualified for collecting, observing and noting anything new to be noted in Natural History... As much a scientific testbed as a voyage of discovery, the Beagle was also furnished with 22 chronometers and carried eight compasses. It was during this voyage that Darwin collated the data that would eventually become his revolutionary book On the Origin of Species in 1859. Beagle performed one more voyage (surveying Western Australia) before she was sold from the Navy in 1845 and was probably broken up around 1870.