John Lort Stokes clocked up thousands of nautical miles during his seventeen years as a hydrographer aboard HMS Beagle. An intimate memento of his lovely but distant wife kept him company.
1 Fanny Jane Marlay, c. 1841. 2 Captain John Lort Stokes, c. 1841. Both an unknown artist.
John Lort Stokes took part in three major voyages aboard HMS Beagle between 1826 and 1843, after being assigned to the ship at age thirteen. He charted Australian coasts and waters on the third, meeting Fanny Jane Marlay in Sydney in 1838. They married in January 1841, and Stokes – now in command of the Beagle – set off on another voyage later that year, taking a portrait of Fanny with him. Lady Franklin saw it when the ship was in Hobart, noting that it ‘adorns the cabin’. He was at sea when Fanny gave birth to their daughter in February 1842. They lived in England for a few years until Stokes was made captain of the Acheron and instructed to undertake a survey of New Zealand. Fanny died in South Africa in 1848. Despite Stokes eventually remarrying, the portrait of Fanny stayed in his possession until his own death in 1885.
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