TECHNOLOGY developed by an Edinburgh firm may have helped end a 130-year search for the ship that helped Charles Darwin develop his theory of evolution.
A team of maritime historians used a revolutionary radar technique to find what is believed to be Darwin’s legendary Beagle entombed in the Essex marshes.
Darwin developed the theory of evolution onboard the vessel, but mystery has surrounded its
whereabouts for more than a century.
The story of the St Andrews University team’s four-year project to find HMS Beagle is to be screened in a BBC documentary tonight.
Professor Colin Pillinger, the space scientist who named his ill-fated Mars probe Beagle 2 after Darwin’s ship, collaborated in the search.
The project was the first time the technology from Edinburgh-based Radar World - which can spot objects under layers of soil and marshland vegetation - has been used to locate a maritime site on land.
The company was founded by scientist Dr Colin Stove who in 1982 discovered a property of radio waves previously overlooked by scientists.
Speaking from the firm’s office in Waterloo Place, his son - and Radar World managing director - Gordon Stove said: "We’ve done similar work to this in the past but it’s not every day you think you’ve found find the ship of the father of evolution.
"The site was a very hostile marshland with lots of channels and traditional technology doesn’t work very well in these environments.
"The remnants we found on the wreck are very similar to the materials of the Beagle and it appears to be Darwin’s ship."
The imaging equipment identified timbers and copper which the scientists believe are the Beagle’s hull.
Four years ago, Radar World was asked by Fidel Castro to hunt for 16th century treasure off the Cuban coast.
The company has also worked to find the wreck of the Blessing of Burntisland in the Firth of Forth - believed to hold treasure belonging to Charles I.
Darwin sailed with the ten-gun brig Beagle on voyages to Patagonia and the Galapagos Islands between 1831 and 1836.
Upon returning from his travels, the naturalist published his revolutionary text The Origin of Species, which rocked the scientific world.
Meanwhile, the 90ft, 235-ton Beagle became a coastguard watch vessel around Essex where she combated brandy, tobacco and lace smugglers.
The ship was later sold by the Admiralty in around 1870 and towed to a nearby backwater, since when her whereabouts have been a mystery.
The researchers unearthed clues from old maps and censuses which led them to a site in the area, near Potton Island.
Following a remote sensing survey, they are convinced they have found the ship - buried 18ft deep in mud.
Team leader Dr Robert Prescott, founder of the Scottish Institute of Maritime Studies at St Andrews, said: "We can see the outline of a dock and can make out wood and metal, which is highly suggestive that there is indeed something substantial down there, most probably the bottom of the Beagle.
"It seems the ship that helped spark off a scientific revolution led a humdrum life in a backwater of England before falling asleep on a muddy riverbank where time seems to have stood still for centuries."
Darwin, who quit his medical studies at Edinburgh University after less than 18 months, was given a memorial near the site of his former city home in Lothian Street in 2002.
• The Hunt for Darwin’s Beagle is to be screened tonight at 8.10pm on BBC2.
The full article contains 607 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
