Naval Career
On 21 February 1812 John Clements Wickham joined the Royal Navy. By 1815 he was an Admiralty Midshipman and was posted to HMS Nightingale and in 1818 was posted to HMS Hyperion before being paid off. He passed his Lieutenant's examination in 1819.
In 1825 he was appointed Second-Lieutenant on the British warship Adventure under the command of Phillip Parker King, son of Philip Gidley King, third Governor of New South Wales. The Adventure and the "Beagle" were ordered to survey the coasts of the southern part of South America, including Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego.
Wickham transferred to the Beagle in 1831 as First Lieutenant, under Captain Robert Fitzroy and first officer Philip Parker King (1791–1856)); Wickham and King were lifelong friends and brothers-in-law as they married sisters, the daughters of Hannibal Hawkins Macarthur. to complete the survey of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, as part of a circumnavigation of the globe. This would be the most famous voyage of the Beagle, with naturalist Charles Darwin, and artists Augustus Earle and (later) Conrad Martens also on board. After entering the Pacific, the Beagle surveyed the coasts of Chile and Peru, the Galapagos Islands, the Society Islands, the Navigator (Samoa) and Fiji island groups, New Zealand, Port Jackson (Sydney), Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), King George's Sound, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Mauritius. It then returned, via Saint Helena, Ascension Island, Bahia and Pernambuco to England in 1836.
On 10 January 1837, Wickham was promoted from Lieutenant to Captain and given command of the Beagle, while Lt John Lort Stokes – a shipmate from the first two journeys of the Beagle – was made first officer.
From 1837 to 1841, the Beagle charting the coasts of north western Australia and Arnhem Land. In 1839, Stokes sighted a natural harbour which Wickham named Port Darwin after their former shipmate.
In 1841, Wickham fell ill and resigned his command which was taken over by Stokes, who continued the survey and completed the voyage in 1843. Darwin also took a Galapagos tortoise named Harriet which he gave to Wickham, who brought it to Brisbane. The tortoise gained fame for her longevity, living 175 years until 2006.
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