Editing HMS Beagle (section)

==Third voyage (1837–1843)==
In the six months after returning from the second voyage, some light repairs were made and ''Beagle'' was commissioned to survey large parts of the coast of Australia under the command of Commander [[John Clements Wickham]], who had been a lieutenant on the second voyage, with assistant surveyor Lieutenant [[John Lort Stokes]] who had been a midshipman on the first voyage of ''Beagle'', then mate and assistant surveyor on the second voyage (no relation to Pringle Stokes). They left Woolwich on 9 June 1837, towed by HM Steamer ''Boxer'', and after reaching Plymouth spent the remainder of the month adjusting their instruments.{{sfn|Stokes|1846|loc=[[s:Discoveries in Australia/Volume 1/Chapter 1|Volume 1, Chapter 1]]}} They set off from Plymouth Sound on the morning of 5 July 1837, and sailed south with stops for observations at [[Tenerife]], [[Salvador, Bahia|Bahia]] and [[Cape Town]].{{sfn|Stokes|1846|loc=[[s:Discoveries in Australia/Volume 1/Chapter 2|Volume 1, Chapter 2]]}}

They reached the [[Swan River (Western Australia)|Swan River]] (modern [[Perth]], Western Australia) on 15 November 1837.{{sfn|Stokes|1846|loc=[[s:Discoveries in Australia/Volume 1/Chapter 3|Volume 1, Chapter 3]]}} Their survey started with the western coast between there and the [[Fitzroy River (Western Australia)|Fitzroy River, Western Australia]], then surveyed both shores of the [[Bass Strait]] at the southeast corner of the continent. To aid ''Beagle'' in her surveying operations in Bass Strait, the Colonial [[Cutter (ship)|cutter]] ''Vansittart'', of Van Diemen's Land, was loaned by Sir [[John Franklin]], Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land, and placed under the command of Mr [[Charles Codrington Forsyth]], the senior mate, assisted by Mr Pasco, another of her mates. In May 1839, they sailed north to survey the shores of the [[Timor Sea|Arafura Sea]] opposite [[Timor]]. When Wickham fell ill and resigned, the command was taken over in March 1841 by Lieutenant John Lort Stokes who continued the survey. The third voyage was completed in 1843.

The exploration of the [[Gulf of Carpentaria]] revealed two major rivers, the [[Albert River (Gulf Savannah)|Albert River]] and the [[Flinders River]].<ref>{{cite news |date=26 July 1843 |title=The Exploring Ship ''Beagle'' |page=3 |newspaper=[[South Australian Register]] |location=South Australia |url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article27445134 |accessdate=30 August 2023 |via=National Library of Australia}}</ref>

Numerous places around the coast were named by Wickham, and subsequently by Stokes when he became captain, often honouring eminent people or the members of the crew. On 9 October 1839 Wickham named [[Port Darwin]], which was first sighted by Stokes, in honour of their former shipmate Charles Darwin. They were reminded of him (and his "geologising") by the discovery there of a new fine-grained sandstone.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Discovery and Exploration of Australia |work=Australia on CD |url=http://www.australiaoncd.com.au/discovery/names7.htm |access-date=24 May 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110303094228/http://www.australiaoncd.com.au/discovery/names7.htm |archive-date=3 March 2011}}</ref> A settlement there became the town of Palmerston in 1869, and was renamed [[Darwin, Northern Territory|Darwin]] in 1911 (not to be confused with the present day city of [[Palmerston, Northern Territory|Palmerston]] near Darwin).<ref>{{cite news |url=http://www.smh.com.au/news/Northern-Territory/Darwin/2005/02/17/1108500201604.html |title=Darwin |date=8 February 2004 |newspaper=[[The Sydney Morning Herald]] |access-date=22 May 2010}}</ref>

During this survey, the [[Beagle Gulf]] was named after the ship.<ref>{{cite book |last=Armstrong |first=Patrick H. |title=All Things Darwin: A–I |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BwwhAQAAIAAJ |publisher=[[Greenwood Publishing Group]] |year=2007 |quote=Captain Wickham named the Beagle Gulf, and Port Darwin in what is now Australia's Northern Territory |chapter=Darwin, City of |page=564 |isbn=9780313334931}}</ref>

''[[Nicotiana benthamiana]]'', a species of [[tobacco]] used from the 1990s as a platform for the production of [[Recombinant DNA|recombinant pharmaceutical proteins]], was first collected for scientific study on the north coast of Australia by Benjamin Bynoe during this voyage.<ref>{{cite news |last=Patton |first=Janet |url=https://www.kentucky.com/news/business/article44501997.html|title=How Owensboro tobacco grew a possible miracle drug to treat Ebola|date=12 November 2015|orig-date=First version published 9 August 2014|newspaper=[[Lexington Herald Leader]]}}</ref>

<gallery widths=200 heights=180>
File:HMSBeagle.jpg|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''.
File:General Chart of Australia (Discoveries in Australia).jpg|1846 "General Chart of Australia", showing coasts examined by HMS ''Beagle'' during the third voyage in red, from [[John Lort Stokes]]' ''[[Discoveries in Australia]]''
</gallery>