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Why did John Lort Stokes name Port Darwin in 1839?
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John Lort Stokes named Port Darwin in 1839 to honor his former shipmate, the British naturalist Charles Darwin.12
Stokes, a surveyor aboard HMS Beagle, discovered the harbour on September 9, 1839, while conducting a survey of the Australian coast. He and his commander, John Clements Wickham, had previously served with Darwin during the ship's famous second voyage (1831–1836), which provided the foundational observations for Darwin's theory of natural selection.123