John Biscoe (28 April 1794 – 1843) was an Englishmariner andexplorer who commanded the first expedition known to have sighted the areas namedEnderby Land andGraham Land along the coast ofAntarctica. The expedition also found a number of islands in the vicinity of Graham Land, including theBiscoe Islands that were named after him.
Biscoe was born inEnfield,Middlesex, England. In March 1812, aged seventeen, he joined theRoyal Navy and served during the1812–1815 war against the United States. By the time of his discharge in 1815, he had become a justiceMaster. Thereafter he sailed on boardmerchant shipping as amate or master, mostly to theEast orWest Indies.[1]
In 1830, thewhaling companySamuel Enderby & Sons appointed Biscoemaster of thebrigTula and leader of an expedition to find new sealing grounds in theSouthern Ocean. Accompanied by thecutterLively, theTula left London and by December had reached theSouth Shetland Islands. The expedition then sailed further south, crossing theAntarctic Circle on 22 January 1831, before turning east at60°S.
A month later, on 24 February 1831, the expedition sighted bare mountain tops through the ocean ice. Biscoe correctly surmised that they were part of a continent and named the areaEnderby Land in honour of his patrons. On 28 February, a headland was spotted, which Biscoe namedCape Ann; the mountain atop the headland would later be namedMount Biscoe. Biscoe kept the expedition in the area while he began to chart the coastline, but after a month his and his crews' health were deteriorating. The expedition sailed toward Australia, reachingHobart, Tasmania in May, but not before two crew members had died fromscurvy.
The expedition wintered in Hobart before heading back toward the Antarctic. On 15 February 1832,Adelaide Island was discovered and two days later theBiscoe Islands. A further four days later, on 21 February, more extensive coastline was spotted. Surmising again that he had encountered a continent, Biscoe named the area"Graham Land",[2] afterFirst Lord of the Admiralty SirJames Graham. Biscoe landed onAnvers Island and claimed to have sighted the mainland of the Antarctic continent.[3]
Biscoe again began charting the new coastline the expedition had found and by the end of April 1832 he had become the third man (afterJames Cook andFabian von Bellingshausen) tocircumnavigate the Antarctic continent. On the journey home, in July, theLively was wrecked at theFalkland Islands. The expedition nonetheless returned to London safely by the beginning of 1833.
In 1833, Biscoe was again commissioned by Samuel Enderby & Sons to make another voyage of exploration. However, he resigned from the effort, probably because of his health. He instead engaged in the West Indies trade in a much warmer climate. He next took part in sailing ventures in Australian waters.[4]
John Biscoe died at sea in 1843 while on a voyage to bring his family fromTasmania back to England. He was 49 years old.
A group of islands and a mountain are named for him. TheBiscoe Islands were discovered off the west coast ofGraham Land in February 1832, during his Antarctic circumnavigation aboardTula andLively.[5]Mount Biscoe is a distinctive 700m black peak, the high point of Cape Ann inEast Antarctica. Discovered byHjalmar Riiser-Larsen (by air in 1929) andMawson (1930), it is thought to have been seen by Biscoe in 1831.[6]
Two British research ships have been named in his honour. After conversion to an ice-strengthened research ship for theFalkland Islands Dependencies Survey, HMSPretext was renamedRRS John Biscoe (1944). She reverted to RRSPretext in 1956, to allow the name to be used forRRS John Biscoe (1956), a new ship with a longer range and greater cargo-carrying capacity.
