Scene depicting travel by canoe on Franklin's second expedition, from a trading card issued c. At the Admiralty, Sir John Barrow was sufficiently impressed that he recommended Franklin for a further command, and his career as Arctic explorer was launched. Despite its limited success, the expedition was celebrated in the press, and depicted in an enormous Panoramic painting by Henry Aston Barker at his establishment in Leicester Square in London. For Franklin, it was his first taste of Arctic adventure, and the fascination was to prove a life-long one. Buchan and Franklin's ships, unfortunately, met with heavy, gale-driven sea ice just north of the Spitzbergen Islands, and after making emergency repairs were forced to head home. The most optimistic of those who saw them off was Second Secretary of the Admiralty Sir John Barrow who, influenced in part by whaler William Scoreseby's reports of unusually large areas of open water and melting ice the year before, believed that this was an ideal time to search for the long-sought (but ultimately chimerical) Open Polar Sea. Their mission was to forge a direct way north beyond Henry Hudson's old record of 80 degrees of latitude. In 1815, he was at the Battle of New Orleans.įranklin and Buchan at Spitzbergen, from Henry Aston Barker's Panorama of Spitzbergen, 1819-20įranklin first travelled to the Arctic in 1818, as a lieutenant under the command of David Buchan, aboard the ships Dorothea and Trent. Following that expedition, he returned to the Napoleonic Wars, serving aboard HMS Bellerophon at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Following this he went on an expedition to explore the coast of Australia on the HMS Investigator with his uncle, Captain Matthew Flinders. Franklin was later present at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801. This hardened young Franklin's resolve, so at the age of 14, his father secured a Royal Navy appointment on HMS Polyphemus. Reluctantly, his father allowed him to go on a trial voyage with a merchant ship. One of his sisters became the mother of Emily Tennyson (wife of the Lord Tennyson).Īlthough his father initially opposed him, Franklin was determined to have a career at sea. He was the ninth of 12 children of a family which had prospered in trade. doi:10.Franklin was born in Spilsby, Lincolnshire in 1786 and educated at King Edward VI Grammar School, Louth. DNA identification of a sailor from the 1845 Franklin northwest passage expedition. Stenton, D., Fratpietro, S., Keenleyside, A., & Park, R.In 2021, DNA analysis on Cranium #80 from King William Island and a descendant from South Africa led to the bones being identified as Engineer Gregory. Two years later, the skulls (Called Cranium #35, and Cranium #80) were given facial reconstructions to establish what the men may have looked like when they were alive. For the next 16 years, no one disturbed them until 2013, when Douglas Stenton and his team brought them and some other bones back for analysis. Four years later, the skulls as well as a femur were placed in a metal box to protect them from the elements and they were placed under a cairn. In 1993, three skeletons were found in Erebus bay in a location close to McClintock's Boat Place. Prior to this, Gregory had not been employed with the Royal Navy, but rather had been an engineer at the firm that manufactured the steam engines employed by the Expedition. In the spring of 1845, Gregory joined the Franklin expedition as HMS Erebus's engineer. The couple would go on to have seven surviving children, most referred to by name in Gregory's final letter to his wife. The wedding was held at Saint Michael's Parish Church in Ashton-Under-Lyne, Lancashire. In 1822, Gregory was married to Hannah Wilson. He was the son of William and Frances Gregory. John Gregory was born on Septemin Salford.
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