Newton Abbot Town & GWR Museum

HMS Beagle

The town of Newton Abbot’s connection with HMS Beagle began in 1941 with the eighth one; she became the town’s adopted ship during Warship Week.  She had four 4.7 inch guns and four 21 inch torpedo tubes and saw action in all theatres of the Second World War in Europe.  In 1941 she was stationed at Gourock (on the Clyde) on escort duty for convoys carrying material to Russia from the USA. 
In May 1945 she took the surrender of German occupying forces on Jersey in the Channel Islands.  She was scrapped in 1946.  The most recent Beagle, a Coastal Survey Vessel of 1089 tons with no armament, was launched in Lowestoft in 1967, and surveyed in many parts of the world.
She was decommissioned in 2002, thereby ending the town’s connection with the successor ships of Darwin’s Beagle.