The Beechey Island Memorial Board at the Science Museum

A wooden board with a piece of metal secured to it.
“Memorial board relic from Franklin’s Northwest Passage expedition.” Courtesy Science Museum Group Collection Online. © The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum

The moment I saw the Memorial Board, I said: “That’s a hunting trophy.”

Some hunter on the track of the Franklin Expedition – perhaps an officer from any one of the 1850-54 search expeditions – found a relic on Beechey Island, brought it home, secured it to a board, and hung it on a wall. Whoever he was, and wherever he displayed it, I’ll bet he told some capital stories about it.

We can only guess, because none of them have accompanied the relic. There’s very little information about it, and what little we have isn’t accessible right now. But now, for the first time, we have a photograph of it.

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Sultan: A Franklin sled dog in London

Sled dogs, Ilulissat. Copyright: Carsten Egevang. You can see more of his beautiful images here: https://www.carstenegevang.com

“Sultan was a splendid Esquimaux dog: King of the Pack. He saved the life of one of Ross’ seamen by his sagacity. He was not suited for London!! & got me into trouble – so I sent him back.”

I’ve mentioned before that I love how John Barrow Junior annotated the Franklin search expedition paperwork that he catalogued for the Admiralty and his own Arctic papers, but this addition caught my eye like no other.

I knew about Sultan: he was the strongest and the bravest dog on Captain William Penny’s 1850-51 search for the Franklin Expedition. He was also the clumsiest and the most opinionated.

So what could have happened when this furry agent of chaos was catapulted headlong into the genteel London life of John Barrow Junior? I had to try to find out.

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Alison FreebairnLeave a comment

Jane and Amélie: a portrait of two ladies

A composite image of two young women with soft curls. Both were drawn by Swiss artist Amelie Romilly in the early 19th Century. One is a portrait of Jane Griffin, the other a self-portrait.
Portrait of Jane Griffin by Amélie Romilly (1816), and a contemporary self-portrait by Amélie.

It was the scene of 24-year-old Jane Griffin’s first romance, and the occasion of her first extended trip outside England. It was exhilarating and stressful, not least because all of these new experiences had to be navigated in a second language. All she wanted to do was be left alone to read Byron and Goethe.

But then she met someone new.

This wasn’t a romance: it would prove to be much more important than that.

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Alison Freebairn5 Comments

Communication channels: how one little search note found its way home

A detail of a 1850 search note left by Captain Erasmus Ommanney of HMS Assistance. Copyright: The National Archives.
A detail of a 1850 search note left on Cape Warrender by Captain Erasmus Ommanney of HMS Assistance. © The National Archives. Editing: Logan Zachary.

They were cold, they were tired, and they had just torn down a large stone cairn on a freezing Arctic headland and found it empty. This is where Sir John Franklin’s men should have left a written record of where they had gone next. To find Erebus and Terror, the searchers had first to find a note.

But there was something even worse than finding nothing in the cairn.

It was finding a cylinder in the cairn, frantically opening it, unrolling the note with shaking hands and hammering heart, and finding it was a missive from another Franklin searcher – possibly even from someone on your own expedition.

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In Praise Of… Frances J. Woodward

No.1 in an occasional series where love is bestowed upon a Franklin searcher – or a Franklin researcher – who doesn’t get enough of it. Today: Frances J. Woodward.

As usual, I was looking for something else when I found it: a story about the sale at auction of an item once belonging to Lady Jane Franklin, found among the effects of the late Frances J. Woodward, her first biographer.

Woodward’s Portrait of Jane: A Life of Lady Franklin is one of my favourite Franklin-related books. I consult it regularly, and often have to tear myself away from it when I’ve found the reference I need. To my shame, I’d never given the author much thought. The book was published way back in 1951 and I’d assumed she was long dead.

But this story told me that not only had Frances J Woodward died relatively recently, in 2014, but also that she had served as a codebreaker at Bletchley Park during the Second World War.

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Disposal records of the RUSI Museum

From the first traces discovered on Cape Riley in 1850, the RUSI Museum in Whitehall, London, laid a strong claim to being the world’s premier museum of Franklin relics.  Even the trove brought back by McClintock was first exhibited there before travelling to Greenwich.  

In the 1960s, however, this august museum was kicked out of its home at the Banqueting Hall, and its historical treasures dispersed throughout the world. Continue reading “Disposal records of the RUSI Museum” →

loganzachary8 Comments