John Clements Wickham

Captain John Clements Wickham
Portrait of John Clements Wickham
Police Magistrate, District of Moreton Bay, New South Wales
In office 1 January 1843 – 8 April 1853
Appointed by	Sir George Gipps
Preceded by	Gilbert Elliot
Succeeded by	None; position renamed Police Magistrate, Brisbane
Government Resident, District of Moreton Bay, New South Wales
In office 8 April 1853 – 1858
Appointed by	Sir Charles Augustus FitzRoy
Preceded by	None
Succeeded by	Frederick Rawkins
Personal details
Born	21 November 1798(1798-11-21) Leith, Scotland
Died	6 January 1864(1864-01-06) (aged 65) Biarritz, France
Resting place	churchyard of St Jean de Luz
Military service
Service/branch	Royal Navy
Years of service	1812 – 1841
Rank	Captain
Commands	HMS Beagle

John Clements Wickham (21 November 1798 – 6 January 1864) was a naval officer, magistrate and administrator. He was a Lieutenant on HMS Beagle during her second survey mission from 1831 to 1836, which took the young naturalist Charles Darwin on what became the subject of his book, The Voyage of the Beagle. Wickham was then made captain, and Commander of the Beagle on her third voyage which set off in 1837 and conducted various maritime expeditions and hydrographic surveys along the Australian coastline.

On his retirement from the Royal Navy, he was made Police Magistrate for the Moreton Bay District of the Colony of New South Wales, arriving in 1843. He relinquished the post on his being made Government Resident of that district. On the separation of the district to become the Colony of Queensland in 1859 he decided to remove himself to southern France where, denied a pension, he died in 1864.

The Wickham family

The origins of the Wickham family were Rowley, a Yorkshire village which later became depopulated. In 1638, two brothers, Richard and Thomas Wickham, were among the families to emigrate to America with Rev. Ezekiel Rogers after he was suspended as Rector of the parish church in 1638 for his non-conformist beliefs. Thomas married Sarah and their fifth son, Samuel Wickham, was born in 1664; he later settled in Rhode Island and became a Freeman of that Colony and a Deputy. Samuel Wickham married Barbara Holken in 1691 and their fifth son, Benjamin Wickham, was born 17 November 1701 at Rhode Island. Benjamin was chosen by the Rhode Island colonial Assembly in 1756 to be Lieutenant-Colonel of a Regiment raised for the second expedition against Crown Point. In 1757, a deputy for Newport he became Speaker of the House of Deputies. Benjamin married Mary, daughter of Colonel John Gardner in 1743 and Samuel Wickham, their sixth and youngest son, was born at Newport, Rhode Island in 1758. This Samuel rose to the rank of Lieutenant in the Royal Navy; while he was attached to the Portuguese Navy as an instructor he was given the rank of Captain-Lieutenant. He fought on the British side in the War of Independence after which he left America and settled in Scotland. On 16 June 1795 he married Ellen Susan Naylor at Gibraltar. John Clements Wickham was born to them on 21 November 1798 at Leith in Scotland.

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 and Tierra del Fuego.

In 1831 Wickham transferred to the Beagle as First Lieutenant under Captain Robert Fitzroy to complete the survey of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, and then to survey the coast of Chile and Peru; from the Galapagos Islands they crossed the Pacific exploring the Society Islands, the Navigator and Fiji island groups, New Zealand, Port Jackson, Van Diemen's Land, and on to King George's Sound. The "Beagle" left Australia crossing the Indian Ocean, visiting the Keeling (Cocos) Islands and Mauritius; then recrossing the Atlantic via Saint Helena, Ascension Island, Bahia and Pernambuco returning to England in 1836. It was on this journey of the Beagle that Charles Darwin travelled.. Also on this second voyage of the Beagle was Philip Gidley King (1817–1904); Wickham and King were life-long friends and brothers-in-law as they married sisters, the daughters of Hannibal Hawkins Macarthur. The artists Augustus Earle and, later, Conrad Martens were also on board.

On 10 January 1837 he was promoted from Lieutenant to Captain; in the same list, his shipmate from the first two journeys of the Beagle, John Lort Stokes was made Lieutenant. Wickham was given command of the Beagle with John Lort Stokes as his lieutenant.

In 1839 Lieutenant John Lort Stokes sighted a natural harbour which Wickham named Port Darwin after their former shipmate, the naturalist. This later became a settlement which developed into the territorial capital and most populous city of Australia's Northern Territory. 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.

Magistrate and Government Resident

Wickham became the police magistrate at the Moreton Bay District of New South Wales (now Queensland). From 1853 he was Government Resident in the Moreton Bay Dstrict, residing at Newstead House.

Retirement

In 1859, Wickham moved to southern France, where he lived until his death in 1864.

Honours

Captain Wickham plaque at Newstead House

In Brisbane, Wickham Terrace and Wickham Street as well as a Kedron sporting house are named in his honour. The Wickham River in the Northern Territory is also named after him.

In 1922, Ismail Street in Ayr was renamed Wickham Street in his honour.

Further reading

• A. A. Morrison, "Wickham, John Clements (1798–1864)", Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University (also available in hard copy in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Vol. 2, (1967, Melbourne University Press) p 597).
• G.J. McCarthy, Wickham, John Clements (1798 - 1864), Encyclopedia of Australian Science 2010.