Syms Covington

sketcher, naturalist and postmaster, was an 18-year-old cabin boy when he became Charles Darwin's servant on HMS Beagle in 1831-36. His only known art works are pencil sketches produced on this voyage (Mitchell Library), including Entrance to the River Derwent, Van Diemen's Land, Showing the Lighthouse and King George's Sound, Western Australia. They are simple records of place in no way comparable with drawings by the Beagle's official artists Conrad Martens and his predecessor Augustus Earle. But after Martens was signed off at Valparaiso in 1834 the expedition lacked any professional draughtsman. Covington obviously drew his sketches at the behest of his admired master; his years with Darwin always remained the high point of his life.

At Sydney in 1836, Covington went insect hunting with Darwin. Between them they collected ninety-two different species, thirty-one previously unknown to science. Darwin later noted that Covington had also 'shot and prepared nearly all the specimens I brought home'. Paid off on 17 October 1836 after returning to London, Covington spent the next two and a half years helping Darwin arrange and document the material collected on the voyage. Then he decided to migrate to New South Wales, a surprising decision given his description of it as a place consisting 'princibly [sic] of convicts, or the most notorious characters of England - & a place I must say I was heartily glad to leave'.

Bearing references from Darwin to William Sharp Macleay, Captain Phillip Parker King, Thomas Mitchell and an open letter of introduction, he reached Sydney in late 1839 or early 1840. He apparently first found employment with the Australian Agricultural Company at Stroud, thanks to King. He married Eliza Twyford there on 12 August 1841. By 1843 he was a clerk at the Agricultural Company's coal depot in Sydney.

Covington corresponded with Darwin for the rest of his life and Darwin seems to have been very fond of this 'upright, prudent' servant who had copied several of his voluminous manuscripts. He sent Covington, who was becoming increasingly deaf, a new ear trumpet (plus instructions for mending his old one) and asked Covington to collect local barnacles for him. A box was sent on 12 March 1850; one (BM) proved to be 'a new species of a genus of which only one specimen is known to exist in the world', Darwin told him.

Having spent some time on the Ovens goldfields in Victoria in 1852-53 without success, Covington was appointed postmaster at Pambula near Twofold Bay (NSW) on 1 November 1854. There he continued to collect for Darwin, sometimes with the assistance of one of his sons. He acquired modest property in the colony ('land and house letting £83 p.a.'), became a farmer and trained his sons in agricultural pursuits. The homestead he built at Pambula (c.1856, extant) also served as an inn, post office and, probably, general store. He considered he had done 'pretty well' in the colony.

Covington died of 'paralysis' on 19 February 1861, aged forty-seven, and was buried in the Pambula Cemetery. His tombstone, inevitably, records that he was Darwin's assistant on the Beagle.

Staff Writer.