HMS Beagle undertook three survey voyages in all, but it was the second one, with naturalist Charles Darwin on board, that guaranteed its place in history. With this set of three watches, each featuring an exquisite hand-painted miniature of HMS Beagle, Arnold & Son pays tribute to one of the most celebrated ships in the history of exploration.
The Beagle’s second voyage is best known for a five-week stopover in the Galapagos Island, which gave Charles Darwin the foundations for his theory of evolution. The voyage’s express purpose, among other things, was to establish a chain of linked reference points with known longitudes that could be used by future navigators to set their chronometers precisely. For this purpose the ship carried an unprecedented 22 marine chronometers, five of which were by Arnold and associates. The large number of timepieces was necessary because of inevitable malfunctions and imprecisions, when a collection of chronometers guaranteed better average values.
The magnificent HMS Beagle timepieces are available in a limited edition of just eight sets of three watches each.
(Source: Arnold & Son)
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