Book Description

John Clements Wickham RN, played an essential navigational role in three voyages of HMS Beagle, the ship on which Charles Darwin, in the second voyage, was naturalist. On the third voyage Wickham was the Commander, from 1837 until he left, ostensibly owing to ill health, in 1841. From 1842 to 1858, he played a prominent role in Brisbane affairs, as Police Magistrate and, later, Government Resident, living at Newstead House. In 1842 he married Anna, daughter of Hannibal Macarthur, who died in 1852, and he married Ellen Deering in 1857 both of whom bore children. Darwin described Wickham as a glorious fine fellow. But despite such praise, and Wickham's great contributions to the founding of Australia, as a navigator, charting and naming its coastline, and as an administrator, no biography of him has appeared apart from some valuable essays and chapters and an excellent booklet by Brian Stewart. The present work attempts to track Wickham's activities throughout his life, until his death at Biarritz in 1864. The text has been kept close to that of the chroniclers of the voyages, Phillip Parker King, Robert Fitz-Roy, Charles Darwin and John Lort Stokes, his companions on board.