InMay We Be Spared to Meet on Earth: Letters of the Lost Franklin Arctic Expedition everybody will be able to read Fitzjames’ original last letters to the Coninghams. This is the publication history of the edited letters, including some quotes and images of the original ones:
InMay We Be Spared to Meet on Earth: Letters of the Lost Franklin Arctic Expedition everybody will be able to read Fitzjames’ original last letters to the Coninghams. This is the publication history of the edited letters, including some quotes and images of the original ones:
I have these paintings available on my Redbubble account along with other paintings of mine (I will be working on more paintings in the same style as these two). They are in higher resolution than the pictures here.
It always amuses me that people put so much faith in this, and not just in Victorian times. I have a relative who won’t make any big life choices without first consulting their psychic. Whatever the case, cases like this and ‘Little Weasey’ were actually a thing. The irony is Franklin was long dead by 1849.
I guess Lady Jane was so desperate to hear her husband was coming home she wanted to hear it from pretty much anyone. The shock that he may have been involved in cannibalism based on Rae’s information couldn’t have helped, although that likely started long after Franklin died.
Turning to geology and meteorology. Overly dramatic background music aside, this is a really quick breakdown of what’s known as the little ice age, a period from about 1550 to 1850 that saw abnormally low global temperatures. I have read theories of this being one of the factors in the disaster of the Franklin Expedition and find it not apologetic but definatly plausible. Following the generally agreed upon dates (and these things never have strict start stop times), 1845 to 1848 and possibly 1850 falls into the tail end of this period and would still have been subject to abnormal fluctuations in temperature. I encourage people to read up more on the nuances of the little ice age, but suffice it to say an expedition outfitted for a predicted three to five years finding itself trapped by an unexpected anomaly is in serious trouble.
Here’s a great video clip shot by @simon_donato from our recent #InFranklinsFootsteps expedition on King William Island in the Canadian Arctic. (Make sure you have your sound on!) The video gives you a good idea of how challenging the travel on foot was for the team who covered over 250kms entirely self-supported! I like this clip for its simplicity.
Source : IG : @ simon_donato
I love how this shows the reality of what hauling supplies across King William Island would have been like.
I haven’t been able to find an online copy of Ancel Keys’s starvation study, but this short article summarizes the deficit in caloric intake on a polar expedition, bearing in mind that the data on calorie use is from modern times and we don’t really know what the rations were when Crozier and his men began marching across King William Island or the exact weight of the loads they were hauling. But it’s safe to assume their loads were at least the weight of those Captian Scott and his men were hauling.
This just gives an idea of the massive task Crozier and his men would have been up against, and how it would have exacerbated any conditions they had when setting out.
Sorry for the abosloutly annoying ads, but this article has pictures and descriptions of artifacts that were recently recovered from the Erebus. The water pitcher and artificial horizon came from an officer’s cabin, though it doesn’t say whose. It only says it wasn’t Franklin’s, where they supposedly think they might find records. Other articles said they couldn’t get into it but not why. Since they need to be careful to not cause unnecessary damage to the ship I’m guessing it might take a while and some planning to get in there. Still not sure how a ship’s log can survive underwater for so long, but I’m not the underwater archaeologist. I also wonder if what they find if anything will be in Franklin’s hand or Fitzjames’. Not sure what naval protocol is when a captian dies and the commander takes over via a vis cabins, but I think the ship’s log would be Fitzjames responsibility since he’d be responsible for that ship (Crozier being responsible for the expedition and Terror). I guess that’s for a naval historian? Crozier was second for the whole expedition but Fitzjames would be second for the ship itself.
Becasue I see people online writing about Ice Ghosts. I hesitated to post a link to this in the fear I may come across as a know it all for encouraging people to avoid what on the surface looks authoritative by saying ‘you should actually read this first’. I like to give people the credit to be able to pull the facts from opinions when reading popular history and know what doesn’t match with everything else they’ve read, but lack of ethics on the authors part is something that should make people avoid buying their product altogether and it isn’t always obvious without knowing the background. I had bought the book when it came out and was jarred like 5 or 10 pages in by the inaccuracies, then read this and wish I’d known what an ass in plain english the author was before I gave him my money. Needless to say I can’t reference what my first wait….what? Moment was since I got rid of it after reading this. Think it was the Fitzjames writing his 'wife’ thing.
Just an FYI - new popular fiction about the Erebus coming next week. It’s likely to be interesting becasue, well, Michael Palin. Yes I like Monty Python, and he is an amateur historian (I’ve heard this is the reason behind Monty Python and the Holy Grail). Terror had a pretty interesting career as well. It was launched to bomb Ft. McHenry in Maryland during the War of 1812, was nearly crushed in the arctic under the command of George Back, captained by Francis Crozier in the Antarctic where it survived a collision with Erebus and finally settled in near pristine conditions in the arctic. At risk of getting annoyingly philosophical about it, I like finding the history of the vessels. They’re just inanimate objects but you can’t help but think of them silently serving their commanders until they reach their final resting place, either crushed and lost at the bottom of the ocean like Endurance or resting like a grand old lady like Fram. I like to think of Erebus and Terror waiting patiently to be listened to.
Anyway, here’s a plate from Terror’s original occupation as a bomb vessel. The ‘GR’ indicates its use under King George III.
Footage of the amazing state of preservation on the HMS Terror. Articles are saying every door was left open except Crozier’s, leading some to speculate that he was last off the ship.
Want to see who some relatives of the lower decks were? Here’s information on a searchable database for next of kin allotments for the Royal Navy and Royal Marines. It doesn’t have scans of the original documents, but I did find results for HMS Terror in the Antarctic and Arctic.
Couldn’t resist posting this - I just picture millenial Tunbaaq strikes Gjoa Haven on an e-scooter with a vaping cigarette and a man bun.
To be fair to my generation, it could be listening to Nirvana in a plaid shirt bitching about how things will never be as good as they were in the 70s and 80s.
A little about the cook on HMS Terror, John Diggle. The men from the lower decks seem to fall through the cracks, and its always interesting to find out about the common men who didn’t pass easily into the history books.
Obscure things related to the Franklin Expedition- the only image I can find of Colonial Secretary John Montagu that won’t require ruining my book on the fight between him and then Lt. Governor John Franklin. This guy was instrumental in Franklin’s recall from Van Diemans Land. It’s politically complicated and hard to make quick but here goes-
Van Diemans Land was the quintessential penal colony. One of the institutions there was the assignment system, where transported criminals were assigned as unpaid servants to free settlers of means, mostly the colonial elite. Governer George Arthur and his favorites profited by it and he was loath to be rid of transportation. Montagu was his niece’s husband and one of those favourites (he actually favored chain gangs which threatened to mess with Arthur’s system but that’s getting too deep). When Arthur was recalled, he encouraged Franklin to maintain the former cabinet including Montagu. Franklin then decided to overhaul the system and make Van Diemans Land a culture center free from transportation, even wanting to call it Tasmania to erase the convict past.
Montagu as Colonial Secretary was the second most powerful person in Van Diemans Land, and he and Franklin ended up at loggerheads over differences of opinion. Franklin ended up dismissing Montagu, but Montagu wasn’t going down without a fight. He ran back to the Colonial office in London and argued Franklin was incompetent and under too much influence from his wife. Montagu had allies in high places, and Franklin was recalled. Its obviously a lot more complex and there are more adult temper tantrums involved, but this is the really, really short version of why “Van Diemans Land was a disaster!” And why Franklin was so hot to be back in discovery service.
Devotional originally given to Lt. Graham Gore by Sir George Back, found at the Boat Place by George Edwards during McClintock’s search expedition. Obviously someone beside Gore ended up with it becasue he was long dead by the time the two men found at the Boat Place died.
“H. Goodsir sailed more than five years ago as a naturalist with the expedition from Franklin to the Arctic regions and may now have to ostracize his desire for science and his scientific zeal with a sad death. The expedition of the summer of 1845, whose uselessness is now only one vote in England, was known to have brought food for only three years, so that when the were very abundant they reached four years (more dares no one to believe), Franklin and his companions had been dependent for a whole year on the dubious yield of fishing and hunting. I was very astonished to hear there is some hope in England to find the lost, and even more astonishingly to find J. Goodsir and one of his brother, the clergyman, embarrassed by it, all the more so when I learned that their youngest brother, also a naturalist, is on the ship sent to Franklin by the British Government in 1849. Imagine the situation of this brother, and especially of the youngest, who, in an inhospitable region, struggling with the elements, and even in mortal danger, meet either the most delightful reunion or the most painful discovery, and certainly the coldest will be sympathetic to the finite lot of this family look forward to.”
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Letter written by Albert von Kölliker while in Edinburgh, 1850. The youngest brother mentioned is Robert A. Goodsir, who famously went to the Arctic twice in search of Harry. (viaharrygoodsirs)
Also a shout out to @keyofmgy since this is her translation of it and I forgot when initially posting this lol
One I so truly loved: Francis Crozier in the writings of James Clark Ross
1. “I feel it my duty in a more especial manner to recommend to your Lordships favourable consideration Mr Crozier my first Lieut: whose previous services under the distinguished Sir E. Parry and the high character he maintained … and his having been upward10 years a Lieut: are alone strong claims to your Lordships consideration.” – to Lord Minto, 30 September 1836
2. “The high example of Naval Enterprize that he has on this occasion manifested and the zealous and efficient manner in which he has fulfilled his trying and difficult duties makes me anxious that an officer of such high reputation who has given so many instances of distinguished merit should receive that promotion which it has been the invariable practice of the Admiralty to bestow on the first Lieut. of all the Arctic Expeditions that have hitherto been sent forth.” – to Lord Minto, 30 September 1836
3. “It affords me the highest gratification to acquaint you that I have received the most cordial and efficient co-operation from my well-tried friend and colleague Captain Crozier, and no terms of admiration that I can employ can do justice to his great merit.” – to the secretary of the Admiralty, 7 April 1841
4. “The eastern cape at the foot of Mount Terror was named after my friend and colleague Commander Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier, of the Terror, to whose zeal and cordial co-operation is mainly to be ascribed, under God’s blessing, the happiness as well as success of the expedition.”–p. 219,A voyage of discovery and research in the southern and Antarctic regions, vol. 1, 1847
5. “Under the circumstances we were placed in, it is impossible for others fully to understand the value of having so tried a friend, of now more than twenty years’ standing, as commander of the second ship, upon whom the harmony and right feeling between the two vessels so greatly depends.” –p. 219, A voyage of discovery and research in the southern and Antarctic regions, vol. 1, 1847
6. “Captain Crozier was distinguished for devotion to his duties as an officer, zeal for the advancement of science, and the untiring assiduity and exactness of his magnetic and other observations.”–obituary written for the Royal Society, 1856
Image:Rossbank Observatory by Thomas Bock, c. 1841
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7. “Captain Crozier was of an amiable and cheerful disposition, and his unbending integrity and truthfulness, invariably won the affection and respect of those he commanded as well as the admiration and firm friendship of all those officers under whom he had served.” –p. 5-6, Memoir of the Late Captain Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier, 1859
8.“I was limited to 12 lines to speak of his services. It was hardly possible to say the thousandth part of what I should have like to have said of one I so truly loved.” – to Eleanor Franklin Gell, 20 March 1855.
“I was limited to 12 lines to speak of his services. It was hardly possible to say the thousandth part of what I should have like to have said of one I so truly loved.“
–James Clark Ross, writing to Eleanor Franklin Gell about Francis Crozier, 1855
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