What was the name of Charles Darwin's personal servant on the HMS Beagle?

Charles Darwin’s personal servant on HMS Beagle was Syms Covington.

Covington joined the Beagle’s second surveying voyage as a teenage cabin boy and fiddler. In 1833, while the ship was in Uruguay, Darwin arranged for him to become his servant and working assistant with Captain Robert FitzRoy’s approval.

His duties went far beyond ordinary domestic service. Covington helped Darwin collect, prepare, and record specimens, acted as an amanuensis, and kept his own journal of the voyage. He also maintained labels for bird specimens, making his collections especially useful for tracing the distribution of Galápagos finches.

After the Beagle returned to England in 1836, Covington continued working for Darwin until February 1839. He later emigrated to Australia, where he became a postmaster. Robert FitzRoy was the Beagle’s captain, not Darwin’s servant; John Covington and Charles Coventry are common-sounding distractors rather than members of this story.