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Fitzroy was the commander of HMS Beagle, the ship in which Charles Darwin made his seminal discoveries. Fitzroy was a fundamentalist Anglican, the second son of a second marriage of the Duke of Grafton, and he had no inheritance. He joined the Royal Navy and soon made his name as a superb hydrographic surveyor, cartographer and navigator, taking command of Beagle in the seas off South America after the suicide of the captain.
In spite of his beliefs, which aroused intellectual strife between Darwin and himself, the pair cooperated well for the five years of the voyage. On their return, their ways parted with Fitzroy continuing in the Navy with further explorations, research on screw propulsion, and control of dockyards. He became an MP and later the Governor of New Zealand where he was unpopular because he favoured Maoris. He founded and organised the Meteorological Office. His religious beliefs were so challenged by Darwin's later work that he fell into depression and took his own life. |