Sir John Franklin | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land | |
| In office 5 January 1837 – 21 August 1843 (1837-01-05 –1843-08-21) | |
| Secretary | John Montagu |
| Preceded by | Sir George Arthur |
| Succeeded by | Sir John Eardley-Wilmot |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1786-04-16)16 April 1786 Spilsby,Lincolnshire, England |
| Died | 11 June 1847(1847-06-11) (aged 61) |
| Spouses | |
| Children | Eleanor Isabella Franklin |
| Signature | .png) |
| Military service | |
| Branch |  Royal Navy |
| Service years | 1800–1847 |
| Rank | Rear-Admiral |
| Wars | |
| Expeditions | |
Rear-AdmiralSir John FranklinKCH FRS FLS FRGS (16 April 1786 – 11 June 1847) was a BritishRoyal Navy officer, explorer and colonial administrator. After serving in theNapoleonic Wars and theWar of 1812, he led two expeditions into theCanadian Arctic and through the islands of theArctic Archipelago, during theCoppermine expedition of 1819 and theMackenzie River expedition of 1825, and served asLieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land from 1837 to 1843. Duringhis third and final expedition, an attempt to traverse theNorthwest Passage in 1845, Franklin's ships became icebound offKing William Island in what is nowNunavut, where he died in June 1847. The icebound ships were abandoned ten months later, and the entire crew died from causes such as starvation,hypothermia, andscurvy.
Franklin was born inSpilsby, Lincolnshire, on16 April 1786, the ninth of twelve children born to Hannah Weekes and Willingham Franklin. His father was a merchant descended from a line of country gentlemen, while his mother was the daughter of a farmer.[1] One of his brothers later entered the legal profession and eventually became a judge inMadras; another joined theEast India Company; while a sister, Sarah, was the mother ofEmily Tennyson, wife ofAlfred, Lord Tennyson.[2] John Franklin must have been affected by an obvious desire to better his social and economic position, given that his elder brothers struggled, sometimes successfully and sometimes not, to establish themselves in a wide variety of careers.[3]
Educated atKing Edward VI Grammar School inLouth, he soon became interested in a career at sea.[4] His father, who intended for Franklin to enter the church or become a businessman,[1] was initially opposed but was reluctantly convinced to allow him to go on a trial voyage on a merchant ship when he was aged 12.[5] His experience of seafaring only confirmed his interest in a career at sea, so in March 1800, Franklin's father secured him aRoyal Navy appointment onHMS Polyphemus.[6]
Commanded by Captain Lawford, thePolyphemus carried 64 guns[7] and, at the time of Franklin's appointment, was still at sea. He did not join the vessel until the autumn of 1800. Initially serving as a first-class volunteer,[8] Franklin soon saw action in theBattle of Copenhagen in which thePolyphemus participated as part ofHoratio Nelson's squadron.[9] An expedition around the coast of Australia aboardHMS Investigator, commanded by his cousin CaptainMatthew Flinders, followed, with Franklin now amidshipman.[10] The two later survived the sinking ofHMSPorpoise on their return to England,[11] Franklin continuing the journey aboard theEarl Camden, which under the Captaincy ofNathaniel Dance frightened off AdmiralCharles de Durand-Linois at theBattle of Pulo Aura in theSouth China Sea on14 February 1804. He was present at theBattle of Trafalgar in 1805 aboardHMS Bellerophon. During theWar of 1812 against the United States, Franklin, now a lieutenant, served aboardHMS Bedford and was wounded during theBattle of Lake Borgne on 14 December 1814.[12]
Franklin commanded HMS Trent in 1818 on a journey from London toSpitzbergen, now Svalbard.[13] The overall expedition was commanded by CaptainDavid Buchan on HMSDorothea.
In 1819, Franklin was chosen to lead theCoppermine expedition overland fromHudson Bay to chart the north coast of Canada eastwards from the mouth of theCoppermine River.[14] On his 1819 expedition, Franklin fell into theHayes River at Robinson Falls and was rescued by a member of his expedition about 90 m (100 yd) downstream.[15]
Between 1819 and 1822, he lost 11 of the 20 men in his party. Most died of starvation or exhaustion, but there was also at least one murder and suggestions ofcannibalism. The survivors were forced to eatlichen and even attempted to eat their own leather boots. This gained Franklin the nickname of "the man who ate his boots".[16]
In 1823, after returning to England, Franklin married the poetEleanor Anne Porden. Their daughter, Eleanor Isabella, was born the following year. His wife died of tuberculosis in 1825.[17] Eleanor Isabella married Reverend John Philip Gell in 1849.[18] She died in 1860.[19]
In 1825, he left for his second Canadian and thirdArctic expedition, theMackenzie River expedition. The goal this time was the mouth of theMackenzie River from which he would follow the coast westward and possibly meetFrederick William Beechey who would try to sail northeast from theBering Strait. With him wasJohn Richardson who would follow the coast east from the Mackenzie to the mouth of the Coppermine River.
At the same time,William Edward Parry would try to sail west from the Atlantic. (Beechey reachedPoint Barrow and Parry became frozen-in 900 mi [1,400 km] to the east. At this time, the only known points on the north coast were a hundred or so miles east from the Bering Strait, the mouth of the Mackenzie, Franklin's stretch east of the Coppermine, and a bit of theGulf of Boothia which had been seen briefly from the land.) Supplies were better organised this time, in part because they were managed byPeter Warren Dease of theHudson's Bay Company (HBC).
After reachingGreat Slave Lake using the standard HBC route, Franklin took a reconnaissance trip 1,000 mi (1,600 km) down the Mackenzie and on16 August 1825, became the second European to reach its mouth. He erected a flagpole with buried letters for Parry. He returned to winter at Fort Franklin (modern-dayDélı̨nę) onGreat Bear Lake. The following summer he went downriver and found the ocean frozen. He worked his way west for several hundred miles and gave up on16 August 1826 at Return Reef when he was about 150 mi (240 km) east of Beechey's Point Barrow.
Reaching safety at Fort Franklin on21 September 1826, he left on20 February 1827 and spent the rest of the winter and spring atFort Chipewyan. He reachedLiverpool on the first of September 1827. Richardson's eastward journey was more successful.[citation needed] Franklin's diary from this expedition describes his men playinghockey on the ice of the Great Bear Lake; Délı̨nę, built on the site of Fort Franklin, thus considers itself to be one of the birthplaces of the sport.[20]
On5 November 1828, he marriedJane Griffin, a friend of his first wife and a seasoned traveller who proved indomitable in the course of their life together. On29 April 1829, he wasknighted byGeorge IV and the same year awarded the firstGold Medal of theSociété de Géographie of France. On25 January 1836, he was made Knight Commander of theRoyal Guelphic Order and a Knight of the GreekOrder of the Redeemer.[21]
Franklin was appointedLieutenant Governor of Van Diemen's Land in 1837 but was removed from office in 1843. He is remembered by a significant landmark in the centre ofHobart—a statue of him dominates the park known asFranklin Square, which was the site of the original Government House. On the plinth below the statue appearsTennyson's epitaph:
Not here! The white north hath thy bones and thou
Heroic sailor soul
Art passing on thine happier voyage now
Toward no earthly pole
His wife worked to set up a university, which was eventually established in 1890, and a museum, credited to theRoyal Society of Tasmania in 1843 under the leadership of her husband.Lady Franklin may have worked to have the Lieutenant-Governor's private botanical gardens, established in 1818, managed as a public resource. Lady Franklin also established aglyptotheque and surrounding lands to support it near Hobart. Sir John and Lady Jane Franklin adopted the daughter of the chief of anindigenous Australian tribe. She was renamedMathinna and was raised with their own daughter Eleanor, but she was abandoned inTasmania when the Franklins returned to England in 1843.[22]
The village ofFranklin, on theHuon River, is named in his honour, as is theFranklin River on theWest Coast of Tasmania, one of the better known Tasmanian rivers due to theFranklin Dam controversy.[23][24]
Shortly after leaving his post as Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen's Land, Franklin revisited a cairn onArthurs Seat, a small mountain just insidePort Phillip Bay inVictoria, Australia, that he had visited as a midshipman with CaptainMatthew Flinders in April 1802. On this trip he was accompanied by Captain Reid of The Briars and Andrew Murison McCrae of Arthurs Seat Station, now known asMcCrae Homestead.[25]
Exploration of the Arctic coastal mainland after Franklin's second Arctic expedition had left less than 500 km (311 mi) of unexplored Arctic coastline. The British decided to send a well-equipped Arctic expedition to complete the charting of the Northwest Passage. After SirJames Clark Ross declined an offer to command the expedition, an invitation was extended to Franklin, who, despite being 59 years old, accepted what was to becomeFranklin's lost expedition.
A younger man, CommanderJames Fitzjames, was given command ofHMS Erebus, and Franklin was named the expedition commander. CaptainFrancis Crozier, who had commandedHMS Terror during theRoss expedition of 1841–1844 to theAntarctic, was appointed executive officer and commander ofTerror. Franklin was given command on7 February 1845, and received official instructions on5 May 1845.[26]
The crew was chosen by theAdmiralty.[citation needed] Most of them were Englishmen, many were from northern England, and a small number were Irishmen and Scotsmen.[citation needed]
Erebus andTerror were sturdily built and were outfitted with recent inventions. These included steam engines from theLondon and Greenwich Railway that enabled the ships to make 4knots (7.4 km/h; 4.6 mph) on their own power, a unique combined steam-based heating and distillation system for the comfort of the crew and to provide large quantities of fresh water for the engine's boilers, a mechanism that enabled the iron rudder and propeller to be drawn into iron wells to protect them from damage, ships' libraries of more than 1,000 books, and three years' worth of conventionally preserved or tinned preserved food supplies. The tinned preserved food was supplied by a cut-rate provisioner who was awarded the contract a few months before the ships were to sail.
Though the provisioner's "patent process" was sound, the haste with which he had prepared thousands of cans of food led to sloppily applied beads ofsolder on the cans' interior edges, allowing lead to leach into the food. Additionally, the water distillation system may have used lead piping and lead-soldered joints, which would have produced drinking water with a high lead content.[27]
The Franklin Expedition set sail fromGreenhithe, England, on19 May 1845, with a crew of 24 officers and 110 men. The ships travelled north toAberdeen and theOrkney Isles for supplies. From Scotland, the ships sailed to Greenland withHMS Rattler and a transport ship,Barretto Junior. After misjudging the location of Whitefish Bay onDisko Island, the expedition backtracked and finally harboured in that far north outpost to prepare for the rest of their voyage. Five crew members were discharged and sent home on theRattler andBarretto Junior, reducing the ships' final crew size to 129. The expedition was last seen by Europeans on26 July 1845, when Captain Dannett of the whalerPrince of Wales encounteredTerror andErebus moored to an iceberg inLancaster Sound.
It is now believed that the expedition wintered onBeechey Island in 1845–46.Terror andErebus became trapped in ice offKing William Island in September 1846. According to a note later found on that island, Franklin died there on11 June 1847, but the exact location of his grave is unknown.
After two years and no word from the expedition,Lady Franklin urged the Admiralty to send a search party. Because the crew carried supplies for three years, the Admiralty waited another year before launching a search and offering a £20,000 reward (equivalent to £2,308,624 in 2023) for finding the expedition. The money and Franklin's fame led to many searches.
At one point, ten British and two American ships,USS Advance andUSS Rescue, headed for the Arctic. Eventually, more ships and men were lost looking for Franklin than in the expedition itself. Ballads such as "Lady Franklin's Lament", commemorating Lady Franklin's search for her lost husband, became popular.[28]
In the summer of 1850, several expeditions, including three from England as well as one from the United States, joined in the search. They converged off the east coast of Beechey Island, where the first relics of the Franklin expedition were found, including the gravesites of three of Franklin's crewmen. Many presumed Franklin was still alive, and he was promoted toRear-Admiral of the Blue in October 1852, an example of an unintentionalposthumous promotion.[29]
In 1854, the Scottish explorerJohn Rae, while surveying theBoothia Peninsula for the Hudson's Bay Company, discovered the true fate of the Franklin party from talking toInuit hunters. He was told both ships had become icebound, and the men had tried to reach safety on foot but had succumbed to cold, and some had resorted to cannibalism.[30]Forensic evidence of cut marks on theskeletal remains of crew members found onKing William Island during the late 20th century somewhat supported the Inuit accounts of reportedcannibalism.[31]
Rae's report to the Admiralty was leaked to the press, which led to widespread revulsion inVictorian society, enraged Franklin's widow, and condemned Rae to ignominy. Lady Franklin's efforts to eulogise her husband, with support from theBritish Establishment, led to a further 25 searches over the next four decades, none of which would add much further information of note regarding Franklin and his men, but contributed hugely to the mapping of the Arctic.[30]
In the mid-1980s, Owen Beattie, aUniversity of Alberta professor ofanthropology, began a 10-year series of scientific studies that showed that the Beechey Island crew had most likely died ofpneumonia[32] and perhapstuberculosis.[33] Toxicological reports indicated thatlead poisoning was also a possible factor.[34][35]
In 1997, more than 140 years after his report, Dr. Rae's account was finally vindicated; cut marks caused by blades were discovered on the bones of some of the crew found on King William Island, strongly suggesting that conditions had become so dire that some crew members resorted to cannibalism.[36][37] Evidence suggestive of breakage and boiling of bones, characteristic of efforts to extract marrow, was subsequently identified.[38] It appeared from these studies that a combination of bad weather, years locked in ice, poisoned food,botulism, starvation, and disease, including scurvy, had killed everyone in the Franklin party. In October 2009, marine archaeologist Robert Grenier outlined recent discoveries of sheet metal and copper which have been recovered from 19th-century Inuit hunting sites. Grenier firmly believes these pieces of metal once belonged to theTerror and formed the protective plating of the ship's hull.
A quote from the British newspaperThe Guardian states:
After studying 19th-century Inuit oral testimony – which included eyewitness descriptions of starving, exhausted men staggering through the snow without condescending to ask local people how they survived in such a wilderness – [Grenier] believes the 19th-century official accounts that all the surviving expedition members abandoned their ice-locked ships are wrong. He believes both ships drifted southwards, with at least two crew remaining until the final destruction of their vessels. One broke up, but Inuit hunters arriving at their summer hunting grounds reported discovering another ship floating in fresh ice in a cove.The ship, probably theTerror, was very neat and orderly, but the Inuit descended into the darkness of the hull with their seal-oil lamps, where they found a tall dead man in an inner cabin. Grenier believes it was there they recovered the copper, which was more valuable than gold to them, and tools, including shears from the ship's workshop with which to work it. Hauntingly, they also reported that one of the masts was on fire. Grenier wonders if what they saw was the funnel from the galley still smoking from a meal cooked that morning before the last of Franklin's men disappeared from history.[39]
A memorial to Franklin was set up almost immediately on the assumption of his death. This is inWestminster Abbey to a design ofMatthew Noble.[40]
For years after the loss of the Franklin party, the media of the Victorian era portrayed Franklin as a hero who led his men in the quest for theNorthwest Passage. A statue of Franklin in his home town bears the inscription: "Discoverer of the North West Passage". Statues of Franklin outside theAthenaeum Club in London and inTasmania bear similar inscriptions.[citation needed] There is also a memorial to him in the Chapel of St Michael atWestminster Abbey.[41]
Many geographic locales are named after Franklin, among themFranklin Island in Antarctica,Franklin Island in Greenland,Franklin Strait in northern Canada,Franklin, Quebec,Franklin Sound north of Tasmania, and theFranklin River and the town ofFranklin in Tasmania, as well as many streets and schools, including Sir John Franklin School, Calgary, AB. The Australian oceanographic research vesselRV Franklin and theCanadian Coast Guard vesselCCGS Sir John Franklin both bear his name. The wintering site of Franklin's second Canadian expedition, inDélı̨nę,Northwest Territories, was designated aNational Historic Site of Canada in 1996.[42][43] The explorer was also memorialised when one of Canada's Northwest Territories subdivisions was named theDistrict of Franklin.Franklin's gull (Leucophaeus pipixcan) of North America was also named after him.
In 2009, a special service of Thanksgiving was held in the chapel at theRoyal Naval College to accompany the rededication of the national monument to Sir John Franklin.[44] It was a celebration of the contributions made by the United Kingdom in the charting ofnorthern Canada, and honoured the loss of life in the pursuit of geographical discovery. The service also marked the 150th anniversary ofFrancis McClintock's voyage aboard the yachtFox, and that expedition's return to London with news of the tragedy.[45][46]
Franklin's time in Tasmania was dramatised in the playJane, My Love and its radio adaptationThe Franklins of Hobart Town.
In September 2014, the wreck ofHMS Erebus was rediscovered inWilmot and Crampton Bay near theAdelaide Peninsula,[47] and, in September 2016, the wreck ofHMS Terror was discovered inTerror Bay on the south coast ofKing William Island, in "pristine" condition.[48] The wrecks were found many miles south of their last known location off the northwest coast of King William Island; archaeologists believe theTerror must have been crewed and sailed to its new location, as the anchor was used and it was sailed through a maze of islands and channels. The wrecks are designated as theWrecks of HMS Erebus and HMS Terror National Historic Site, with the precise locations of the discoveries undisclosed.[49][50]
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