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| History | |
|---|---|
 United Kingdom | |
| Name | Fox |
| Builder | Alexander Hall and Sons,Aberdeen |
| Launched | 1854 |
| Fate | Wrecked 1912 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Auxiliary steamship |
| Tons burthen | 320BM |
| Length |
|
| Beam | 24 ft 4 in (7.4 m) |
| Depth of hold | 11 ft 6 in (3.51 m) |
| Propulsion | Sails and steam (16 nominalhorse power) |
| Sail plan | 3-masted schooner rigged |
| Complement | 26 |
TheFox was an 1854steam yacht commanded byLeopold McClintock on a privately funded 1857–1859 expedition to the North AmericanArctic Archipelago to search for clues about the fate ofFranklin's lost expedition.
Fox was a built as a yacht for Sir Richard Sutton, 2nd Baronet at a cost of about £5000. The ship's hull was diagonally planked with Scotchlarch on the inside and East Indiateak on the outside, and the two-cylinder auxiliary steam engine of 16 n.h.p. gave a speed of about seven knots.
Fox had made just one cruise to Norway before Sutton's death. After a period of use in the Baltic during theCrimean War, the vessel was laid up in a partly dismantled state at the builders' yards. The executors of Sutton's will sold the ship for £2000 to LadyJane Franklin, for use in attempting to find her husband, SirJohn Franklin, and his expedition.
Land-based expeditions in 1854 and 1855 underJohn Rae and James Anderson had discovered relics from the missing expedition north ofBack River, south-west of theBoothia Peninsula. Lady Franklin had previously sent three expeditions to search this area, but all had failed to reach it.
She purchasedFox in April 1857, after finally accepting advice that the 159-ton auxiliary schoonerIsabel that she had owned since 1852 was too small for the job, and the government had denied her requests to useHMS Resolute. Sailing MasterAllen Young donated £500 towards the subscriptions raised for the expedition.Fox's second-in-command was Lieutenant William Hobson.
Fox left Aberdeen on 1 July 1857, and managed to pass through theBellot Strait briefly before finding a secure winter anchorage to the east of the Strait off the Boothia Peninsula. Over the next two years extensive expeditions were made by sled to the west of the Boothia Peninsula.
On 6 May 1859, Hobson discovered the only written messages from the missing expedition ever found, in cairns onKing William Island. The overland parties returned to the ship, which then left for Plymouth, arriving on 20 September. Three of the ship's crew died during the expedition: the engineer from natural causes, his assistant by a shipboard accident, and the steward fromscurvy.
Still under Allen Young's command,Fox was engaged in survey work between theFaroe Islands andGreenland in conjunction with laying a North Atlantic telegraph cable in 1860–1861, before being sold to the Danish Royal Greenland Company. By the late 1880s,Fox was owned by Akties Kryolith Mine-og Handels Selskabet of Copenhagen, and was refitted with a 17 nhp compound steam engine made byBurmeister & Wain. After a long and useful career,Fox was wrecked on the coast of Greenland in 1912.
Shipwrecks and maritime incidents in 1912 | |
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| Shipwrecks |
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| Other incidents |
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