Wickham transferred to the "Beagle" in 1831 as First Lieutenant, under Captain Robert Fitzroy and first officer Philip Parker King (1791–1856), to complete the survey of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, as part of a circumnavigation of the globe. Wickham and King were lifelong friends and brothers-in-law as they married sisters, the daughters of Hannibal Hawkins Macarthur. This would be the most famous voyage of the Beagle, with naturalist Charles Darwin, and artists Augustus Earle and (later) Conrad Martens also on board. After entering the Pacific Ocean, the Beagle surveyed the coasts of Chile and Peru, the Galápagos Islands, the Society Islands, the Navigator (Samoa) and Fiji island groups, New Zealand, Port Jackson (Sydney), Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), King George's Sound, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Mauritius. It then returned, via Saint Helena, Ascension Island, Bahia and Pernambuco to England in 1836.