HMS Beagle

The model ships is available in different sizes, please click on the size box below to choose the size required.

Clients of our model of the Beagle so far includes the BBC (TV programme "Our ancestors) ,Oxford University Museum of Natural History, American Museum of Natural History, Cambridge University, Addison Gallery of Art, Philips Academy (Gelb Science Center), Eton College Natural History Museum and MDM Props / English Heritage , Staatliches Museum Germany ,Danish Natural History Museum , Agder Natural History Museum , Botanical Garden Norway , University of Witswatersrand South Africa and Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History.

Customer Reference: 

When confronted with two projects for the BBC 'Ancestors' both requiring detailed model ships, and both with a tight budget and limited timescale, I was initially at a loss. Fortunately a quick search on the web introduced the BBC to Premier Ship Models.

Having met with Rashid to discuss my requirements, objectives and timescales, I was sincerely astonished with both his enthusiasm and the detailed quality of his company's ship models.

Despite an almost impossible schedule, his extraordinary team of craftsfolk managed to deliver ‘2 x 8 feet' ship models of the HMS Beagle and HMS Bellona -on time and more importantly on budget!!

I greatly look forward to working with the team of true professionals on another project very shortly.
 
Mike Tucker - Miniature Effects Supervisor
BBC, January 2005
(HMS Beagle & HMS Bellona,  Ship Models 8 feet long)

Dear Rashid...Thank you so much for your prompt and detailed response.  I am very excited about acquiring the model, and will process the order per your recommendation today.  Just a note...I have been investigating several different models of the Beagle and, according to the blueprints of the boat (which I found, in detail, in a book entitled "HMS Beagle, Survey Ship Extraordinary") the model you produce is, BY FAR, the most accurate.  Thank you again...I will send the order in this afternoon. 

Marc D Koolen
December 2006 

HMS Beagle was originally launched as one of 115 Cherokee-class 10-gun brigs built by the Royal Navy between 1807 and 1830 and used in a variety of roles including surveying and antislaver patrols.

By the time of her first voyage Beagle had been converted to a bark rig. Her first major voyage was from May 1826 to October 1830 with HMS Adventure, to chart the straits and passages of the southern tip of South America; it was during this voyage that the Beagle Channel, skirting the southern edge of Tierra del Fuego, was explored and named. Under the stress of arduous conditions in the waters around Tierra del Fuego, Captain Pringle Stokes killed himself in August 1828. Short of provisions and with many of the crew ill, Beagle returned to Buenos Aires where Lieutenant Robert FitzRoy took command for the homeward voyage.

Six months after her return, Beagle was off to Australia under the command of Captain John Lord Stokes, a veteran of the FitzRoy-Darwin voyage. After surveying the western coast between the Swan River (Perth) and Fitzroy River (named for his former commander), she sailed around to the southeast corner of the continent. There, Beagle conducted surveys along both shores of the Bass Strait, and then in May of 1839 sailed northabout to the shores of the Arafura Sea opposite Timor.

Her crew named a number of geographical features, including Port Darwin (for their former shipmate) and the Flinders River, after the indomitable surveyor of HMS Investigator. In so honoring his predecessor, Stokes reflected that "monuments may crumble, but a name endures as long as the world."

Her work in Australia done, Beagle returned to England in 1843, after 18 years' hard service to her nation and the world. Transferred out of the Royal Navy in 1845, Beagle ended her days as the Preventive Service's stationary Beagle Watch Vessel (renamed W.V.7 in 1863) moored at Pagelsham Pool on the coast of Essex. She was sold and probably broken up in 1870.

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