Tag: Franklin Search Ships

HMS North Star CRUSHES IT in the Arctic and Saves the Searchers!

HMS North Star was an outstanding ship with a most fitting name. Like her namesake, the Pole Star, she guided mariners back home from the edges of the charted World. Though overshadowed by the lost Sir John Franklin 1845 Expedition ships Erebus and Terror, and the famous vessels searching for them, Resolute and Investigator (to name two), North Star did exceptional work in the Arctic.1 Her transformation from fighting corvette to expedition depot ship may not seem as interesting as the refits those other ships received. Actually, the 1849 rebuild created an Arctic juggernaut – a vessel tough enough to withstand collisions, groundings, ice “nipping,” and general Arctic pummeling during two missions over the course of five busy years. When all other ships had to be abandoned, North Star brought the Sir Edward Belcher Expedition home – saving the Franklin searchers!

Our interpretation of HMS North Star’s updated appearance ca. 1849-1854, ready for the Arctic! Credit:www.warsearcher.com adapted from National Maritime Museum plan ZAZ3213 and other technical info and used with written permission of NMM staff.

HMS North Star was launched at Woolwich dockyard in 1824 and completed in 1826, to a trim design – an Atholl class corvette – that we explored in a recent post.2 Like other “Donkey Frigates,” she spent much of her career in distant waters. “Donkey Frigates” was a contemporary term for a small frigate-like corvette performing the roles normally taken on by larger, more expensive to operate warships, such as Leda class frigates. A fine record of the 1826-1848 events of North Star exists at the “Index of 19th Century Naval Vessels and some of their movements” at RootsWeb. Her early service came as a member of the West African Squadron – patrolling to suppress the Atlantic slave trade. This was followed by participation in two of Britain’s imperial wars of the mid-19th Century.

A half-hull model of HMS Rainbow (1823) North Star’s sister. This model shows the clean lines of the original corvette design. SLR0706 Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.

A member of Sir William Parker’s fleet involved in the First Opium War (Anglo-Chinese War), she was present at the signing of the Treaty of Nanking in August, 1842. During 1845-46 North Star operated around New Zealand during the Flagstaff War, contributing shore parties that fought in battles against Maori warriors who were resisting the recently-imposed colonial regime. At the same time, at the frozen top of the North American landmass, Sir John Franklin and his two ships – making their bid for completing a Northwest Passage – were wintering at a location that would figure large in North Star’s subsequent history: Beechey Island.

HMS Cornwallis and the British Squadron saluting the peace treaty at the signing of the Treaty of Nanking 29 August 1842. HMS North Star under Captain J.E. Home was present. Rundle Burges Watson, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Three years later, public concern about the condition of the missing Franklin crews was reaching fever pitch. North Star was ordered north to rendezvous with Sir James Ross’s search expedition, consisting of HMS Enterprise and Investigator. North Star, under the command of Master James Saunders, would carry provisions to help continue Captains Ross and Edward Bird’s Franklin search. Saunders was familiar with the Arctic and the lost ships: he had served on Terror for George Back’s 1836 Frozen Straits Expedition. Before the veteran warship and her forty crew members could depart, she had to be extensively modified to survive in one of the harshest maritime environments.

Master Shipwright Oliver Lang, who had been involved in the 1845 modifications to Erebus and Terror, supervised the work. More than a hundred shipwrights were tasked with the modifications at Sheerness dockyard from late February 1849. In April, that number surged to two hundred. They worked feverishly to get the ship ready for a mid-May sailing. Of all the ships that Lang was involved in refitting for Arctic service, North Star was special. What emerged from drydock wasn’t like the three other Atholls involved in the Franklin searches. It wasn’t last war’s corvette, a light survey vessel, a troopship, or some “Donkey Frigate.” Lang had created a monster! The design looked whacky, but it would prove to be the right kind of crazy for the challenges that awaited the Belcher Expedition in the Arctic.3

HMS North Star‘s updated bows, including the simplified stem and massive iron sheathing. Credit: ILN staff The Illustrated London News, 26 May 1849, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

The headrails and decoration at the bows were removed and a prominent ice guard of iron sheathing was installed. This projected out on a shelf-like section. Two massive hawse holes pierced this ice guard on either bow, to pay out and haul in the thick anchor cables. Reinforced catsheads supported massive port and starboard bower anchors.

A detailed view of North Star‘s bow as it appeared in 1852.”Sir Edward Belcher’s Arctic Expedition, sent in search of Sir John Franklin” Illustrated London News 17 April 1852 P305

Stretching aft along the sides of the hull, the channels were filled-in to protect the shrouds against ice damage, and massive vertical riders were installed amidships near the entryway stairs. Along the gundeck, several gunports were deleted, while the remaining ones were simplified to small scuttles-an identifying feature of this vessel. Heavy davits were hung out over either quarter over the mizzen channels to hold the boats securely. The davits over the stern had to be especially strong as this was also a location to hang the comparatively fragile rudder off of when the ships were beset in ice.

An Admiralty model long thought to be HMS Terror or Enterprise, has been identified by us as HMS North Star as modified for Arctic service. Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, (SLR0832)

The decorative stern and quarter galleries were simplified, with the lights (windows) appearing as narrow slits. Another pair of hawse holes appear to have been installed in the transom over the stern at the level of the quarterdeck, in a similar position to sister Rattlesnake’s fittings (an image of this appeared in the earlier post). These may have been intended to help position the vessel during anchoring or for shifting cargo to expedition vessels alongside. Flanking this rugged stern, the old quarter galleries were simplified. The three-masted ship rig was reduced to a barque by simplifying the yards of the mizzen mast.

HMS North Star towed out by the Stromboli departing for her first Arctic Franklin search expedition in early 1849 [detail of]. This is one of the most detailed views of North Star‘s modified appearance. Illustrated London News 26 May 1849 P340.

North Star was towed from Greenhithe by HM Steam Vessel Stromboli, departing 16 May 1849. As the season progressed, Saunders was not able to locate Ross, and instead dropped stores where they may have come in handy to either Franklin’s crews or expeditions searching for them. He departed the Canadian Arctic to re-cross Baffin Bay to Greenland. On the return journey, North Star endured treacherous ice conditions starting in July, and was nearly crushed several times. Eventually the crew sought shelter at Wolstenholme Fjord and the ship was beset in September. They overwintered further north than previous expeditions, on the coast of northwest Greenland near a table-topped mountain named Dundas Hill (Umanaq).

North Star Bay, with the ship frozen into the unusual surroundings of Dundas Hill/Uummannaq near the site of present-day Qaanaaq (fmr. Thule). Credit: Horace Harral, the Graphic 13 Nov. 1875 Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Four crew members perished during this time, and were buried nearby. When the ice cleared, Saunders turned west to return to the Canadian Arctic, to Baffin Bay and Wellington Channel, depositing more supplies at Navy Board Inlet. He learned that Ross had sailed for home from a chance encounter with William Penny (leading a privately-funded search expedition). North Star returned to England in the summer of 1850. Penny and Capt. Horatio Austin’s crews jointly discovered that Beechey Island had been the site of Franklin’s first overwintering – an event that would focus subsequent searches.

The Admiralty sent North Star back up again in early 1852, under the command of William J.S. Pullen. Pullen had distinguished himself in boat-led exploration missions while detached from the early western Arctic searches of HMS Plover and Herald. The new assignment was to travel with the large search squadron now being assembled by Sir Edward Belcher: HMS Assistance (Cmdr. George H. Richards) and HMS Resolute (Capt. Henry Kellett), and their steam tenders, Pioneer (Cmdr. Sherard Osborn) and Intrepid (Cmdr. Francis Leopold McClintock). North Star’s role was the unglamorous-yet-vital one of supply and provisioning.


“The first view of Greenland, Cape Desolation 21 May 1852” the Belcher squadron is all depicted, with Kellett’s and McClintock’s commands, Resolute and Intrepid, in the foreground, passing some bergy bits. Credit: Mumford Fonds, Library and Archives Canada 86-18-3

The Belcher Expedition used the same successful quartet of vessels that had gone up under the command of Austin in 1850, but added the depot ship to the mix. This, it was hoped, would help the search ships explore further and stay on mission longer than previous attempts to locate the long-lost Expedition.

A formal portrait of WJS Pullen 1813-1887, depicted later in life, in the full dress uniform of a Rear Admiral, wearing the Arctic and Crimea Medals. Courtesy of the State Library of South Australia B25099.

In early July 1852 the squadron was moving up Baffin Bay. They encountering some of the yearly whaling fleet while navigating along ice floes. North Star was damaged by the American barque McLellan. The threat of being caught between land floes and the floating pack ice was ever-present. A moment’s change in conditions could “nip” ships between these two frozen masses, without sufficient time to cut a protective “ice dock” into the land floe. Several whalers and North Star were nipped July 7th. The shuddering and wild pitching of hulls created a demonic clanging of ships’ bells. The unfortunate American whaler had also been forced against both North Star and the Alexander whaler (from Dundee). North Star‘s starboard cathead was mauled, and crew worked frantically to save the jibboom and bowsprit. As McLellan was further destroyed on the 8th, carpenters salvaged much of the hulk, and set North Star to rights.

George Frederick McDougall “The Loss of the McClellan – American Whaler” 8 July 1852 [detail of] this view shows a view of North Star, the nearer ship at left flying the red ensign, which shows some remaining transom lights and decoration, and the rudder suspended from the stern davits. Credit: Elizabeth Matthews (https://www.hms-resolute.co.uk/) used with permission.

Days later, the ship was proceeding up Lancaster Sound along the southern shores of Devon Island. Even with her rugged alterations, North Star proved the finest sailer in the squadron.4 In August, at Beechey Island, the search ships topped up coal stocks from the depot ship’s supplies. Assistance and Resolute departed separately with their steam tenders to search different areas of the Arctic archipelago. They deposited caches of supplies and left records in prominent cairns as they went. North Star’s coal supplies were vital to extending the range of the whole effort: The combination of sail and towing by steam tender proved especially successful to advancing deep into uncharted passages and extricating Assistance and Resolute from perilous conditions. North Star remained at Beechey Island from 1852-1854, overwintering twice in Erebus and Terror Bay.

“HMS North Star forced on shore by the ice at Beechey, near Cape Spencer”, This dramatic June 1853 view by HMS Resolute’s WT Mumford shows another instance where North Star was in peril. Credit: Mumford Fonds, Library and Archives Canada 1986-18-20

In September, as the Barrow Strait became a treacherous seascape of shifting ice, the Bay froze over. North Star was almost destroyed against the shore. The next June, she was again forced up. In between existential crises, Pullen kept his crew busy building up the shore establishment at Beechey with a new depot/storehouse, Northumberland House, built from components of the lost whaling ship. Crew moved Mary, a yacht left by Sir John Ross, to Beechey from nearby Cape Spencer to serve as a “rescue yourself” lifeboat, should anyone require it. In 1854 ships’ carpenters even built a cenotaph to commemorate their lost shipmates, again from timbers salvaged from McLellan.

HMS North Star, at Beechey Island. Dated May 1854, this remarkable view by HMS Resolute’s William Mumford shows Beechey’s imposing and bleak cliffs. Ashore, Northumberland House, the storehouse, and a large boat which is likely Sir John Ross’s rescue yacht Mary, are visible. [Detail of] Credit: Mumford Fonds, Library and Archives Canada 1986-18-27

The North Star and the Beechey establishment remained as the vital link in the logistical chain that sustained the Franklin search. Other vessels, under the command of Captain E.A. Inglefield, journeyed from England to resupply North Star at Beechey in the high summers of 1853-54. In early 1854, with crews weakening from the effects of scurvy and other ailments, and with no immediate prospect of escape for the ice-imprisoned search ships, Sir Edward Belcher took the difficult decision to order his captains to abandon their ships. Crews would sledge back to Beechey, along a route they knew, that they themselves had stocked with supply depots. Pullen and his forty crew assisted in bringing them in, provided medical assistance to the weakened, closed up Northumberland House in good order, and cut their own canal out of Erebus and Terror Bay to start for home at the end of August. Five crews adding up to about 230 sailors had abandoned their frozen ships and were in sledging parties marching a long trail through difficult terrain. But, unlike the 129 dead men they had been sent to find, these sailors knew they were trekking back to salvation – a beacon in the High Arctic – their familiar North Star.5

  1. This account draws from the article “Icy Imprisonment: the 1848 Voyage of the HMS North Star” at https://beyondthebackyard.com/2014/09/03/icy-imprisonment-the-1849-voyage-of-the-hms-north-star/ and from Richard J. Cyriax (1964) “The Voyage of H.M.S. North Star, 1849-50” The Mariner’s Mirror, 50:4, 302-318. (which was provided to us with thanks from Randall Osczevski). I would also like to thank Fabiënne Tetteroo for providing higher-resolution images of the first and third ILN illustrations used above, and Elizabeth Matthews of HMS Resolute, for the same help with G.F. McDougall’s “The Loss of the McClellan – American Whaler.” ↩︎
  2. Please see our earlier post on the Atholl Class sister ships that were involved in the British search efforts for the missing Sir John Franklin Expedition, for a description of the original design of the class of fourteen ships and a brief account of the Franklin search-related careers of HMS Herald, Rattlesnake, and Talbot. The group contributed a lot to the Franklin search efforts! ↩︎
  3. To see how far the original Atholl class corvette design had evolved, see for example, the 1844 plans of sistership HMS Crocodile (1825), modified for rugged service as a surveying ship, also with a fortified bow guard, and a built-up weatherdeck: National Maritime Museum ZAZ5498. This was an important source for our reconstruction. There would also have been an extensive doubling, fortification, and interior strengthening of the hull of North Star. Our plan is not considered a final plan, but is a simplified representation, and it is the only of its kind. ↩︎
  4. Observers on HMS Resolute, George McDougall and William Mumford, both commented in August 1852 entries on North Star’s turn of speed while detached to arrive at the rendezvous of Beechey to check for Assistance and Pioneer (who had become separated but were themselves were still miles away). McDougall’s 1857 published account is currently available online at babel.hathitrust.org. Mumford’s invaluable diary exists as the main part of his archival fonds at Library and Archives Canada. ↩︎
  5. HMS Investigator’s 61-man crew, frozen in at Mercy Bay, was fortuitously located by a party from HMS Resolute under Lt. Bedford Pim on 6 April 1853. Robert McClure abandoned Investigator, and moved his ailing crew over to Resolute and her steam tender Intrepid (which eventually allowed him to claim his crew had been first to transit-not sailing- the Northwest Passage). I have counted the crew in with the 180 other men of the search ships. HMS North Star’s crew was about forty strong, if she had the same numbers born as for the 1850-51 voyages, making the Expedition total to about 281 men, 13 of whom, tragically, died in the course of their service and are commemorated by name on the remote but important Beechey Island Cenotaph. The French officer Lt. Émile-Frédéric de Bray, in his published account, lists the total number of personnel at 263 (Quoted in Barr and Stein’s “Frederick J. Krabbé, last man to see HMS Investigator afloat,
    May 1854″ Journal of the Hakluyt Society 2017/01 P28). As North Star was leaving Beechey on 26 August 1854, HMS Phoenix and Talbot (North Star’s sister ship) arrived on their resupply mission, and so helped disperse the Belcher crews to transport them home to England in three vessels. ↩︎

Frigates for Finding Franklin!

“Franklin Search Frigates!” What?! The three ships we are profiling today were involved in an important but unglamorous role: sustaining the search efforts for the missing sailors of the 1845 Sir John Franklin Expedition ships HMS Erebus and Terror. They helped support the search missions by caching supplies along the Alaska coast to provision the crews that were exploring the Canadian Arctic. This was important work, but is rarely mentioned in the literature about the lost Expedition or the many searches.

The last of the Franklin adjacent ships! HMS Trincomalee at Hartlepool Maritime Experience, 2009. Credit: Ian Petticrew, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The Leda class frigates HMS Daedalus, Amphitrite, and Trincomalee were the largest ships that we are aware of that were involved in supporting the Franklin search efforts.1 The service of these three powerful vessels, from 1851 to 1854, involved supply missions to sustain the western Arctic searches (and especially the ongoing searches of HMS Plover under captains T. E. L. Moore and then Maguire). These efforts complement the Atholl class corvettes’ similar work, which we explored in more detail in a recent post.

The Ledas were a highly successful group of forty-seven frigates based originally on the lines of a French Hébé, which had been captured back in 1782. Copying French ships was a fine tradition in the Royal Navy.2 The design was adapted to Royal Naval requirements. These were large frigates, that displaced more than a thousand tons – twice the size of the Atholl class supply ships also assisting in the searches and three times the size of Franklin’s two missing exploration vessels. They were originally armed with thirty-eight or more heavy cannon – the main armament on the expansive 150’ gundeck consisted of twenty-eight 18-pounders. During the War of 1812, a member of the class, HMS Shannon, had captured USS Chesapeake in an incredible duel off Boston.

HMS Shannon boards USS Chesapeake on the afternoon of 1 June 1813 off Boston, by Thomas Buttersworth via wikimedia commons. Shannon (left) displays the original fine lines and traditional galleries of the first Leda frigates.

Since units were under construction for almost thirty years, the design was modified many times. “Improved” members of the class eventually boasted updated diagonal framing and circular sterns. The early Victorian sailing navy was serving through an innovative period of technical experimentation, and Ledas underwent some quite radical transformations in their long careers. Today, astonishingly, two members of the class, HMS Trincomalee and Unicorn, are preserved and show different eras of the design.

A 1968 view of HMS Unicorn showing small masts stepped, and the innovative “round stern” design that allowed more cannon to be trained aft, to defend the vulnerable stern. Unicorn and Daedalus were nearly identical. Courtesy of National History Ships UK http://www.nationalhistoricships.org

Daedalus was launched in 1824 just prior to the similar Unicorn, which survives today as a museum ship. Both ships featured the then-revolutionary “circular stern” design. Like Unicorn, she was left in reserve status for decades. The design was cut-down or razéed and converted to a steam-powered screw-propelled 19-gun corvette in 1844, with the stern galleries omitted. Given the odd numbering of cannon, she likely had a single rotating gun over the stern. She famously “tangled” with an enormous sea serpent near the Cape of Good Hope in 1848. Under the command of Captain George Wellesley, Daedalus was sent in 1851 to support the searches of HMS Plover. Daedalus survived as a naval reserve drill ship until 1911 when she was dismantled at Bristol.

“Sea Serpent Sighted by HBMS Daedalus,” from Gleason’s Pictorial 3 July 1852. [Detail of]. This is a nice depiction of Daedalus refitted to a corvette, though we can’t speak to the accuracy of the sea serpent. Uploader Andrewelston inston, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Amphitrite was built in Mumbai of teak, a durable hardwood that proved as resilient as the traditional English oak. She was launched in 1816. While serving as a unit of the Pacific Squadron, under the command of Captain Charles Frederick, she was used on supply missions in 1852 and again in 1853. From the illustrations used in this post, she appears to be the only ship of the three that had not been substantially rebuilt to the lighter specifications of a corvette by the 1850s. Amphitrite was eventually broken up in 1875.

“HMS Amphitrite in the Ice, Sea of Ochotska. Lat. 53o 50′.n. Lony.142o OO’.E” Watercolour by Henry Hand. Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.
Her Majesty’s Ships Amphitrite & Trincomalee leaving San Francisco, 1854. Amphitrite (left) displays the elements of the Leda class design, whereas Trincomalee (centre) had been refitted as a corvette. Watercolour by Henry Hand, PAH0799 Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.

Trincomalee was also a teak-built frigate built in Mumbai. She was launched in 1817 and had to transit to England for completion. Soon after arrival, she was placed in reserve status and remained that way until 1845. The ship was under refit at the same time as Franklin’s ships, Erebus and Terror, and was modified with a new elliptical stern and down-rated as a corvette. Interestingly, this stern is actually a later style than the circular sterns of Daedalus and Unicorn, but fits aesthetically more with the traditional lineage of elaborate Georgian-era galleries. Trincomalee, a unit of the Pacific Squadron, was sent up to Alaska in 1854, under the command of Captain Wallace Houston, and met HMS Rattlesnake. Serving for more than a century as a tender, and a training ship, TS Foudroyant – the companion of the venerable Trafalgar prize Implacable – she was preserved as a museum ship during the 1990s.

Training Ships Foudroyant (left) and Implacable. Foudroyant was and would be renamed Trincomalee, while Implacable, scuttled in 1949, was originally the French prize Duguay-Trouin, captured at the Battle of Trafalgar, 1805. © IWM (A 25960)

Today this lovely frigate, restored to her 19th Century appearance, exists as the last non-wrecked vessel that participated in any way in the Franklin searches.

  1. The author is again basing this off the list of participating ships found in W. Gillies Ross’s “The Type and Number of Expeditions in the Franklin Search 1847–1859,” ARCTIC Vol. 55, No. 1 (MARCH 2002) 57–69 https://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic55-1-57.pdf ↩︎
  2. The origins of the whole frigate category were from French vessels captured during the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-48). The same is arguably true of the move from inferior third rate line-of-battle ships to proper 74-gunners in the mid-18th Century. ↩︎

The Atholl Corvettes: Supporting the Franklin Searches in Style

One class of Royal Navy vessel is connected to the search for the missing Sir John Franklin Expedition of 1845, and you’ve likely never heard of it! The Atholl class of corvettes were built two decades before Franklin’s Northwest Passage Expedition sailed, at the same time as HMS Erebus, Franklin’s lead ship. Four members of the class, HMS Rattlesnake, Herald, Talbot, and North Star participated in search efforts for the missing crews. In this post we explore the design of these ships and the Arctic service of three members of the class. A future post will reconstruct HMS North Star’s unique refitting and summarize her important career.

A half-hull model of Atholl class HMS Rainbow (1823) SLR0706 Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London.

What is so special about these ships? Arctic and Antarctic exploration vessels were heavily-adapted to survive difficult conditions at the high latitudes. Exploration ships were under a different type of attack these warships had been designed for. Hulls required strengthening and fortification to serve in a chaotic environment characterized by ice floes; icebergs; bergy bits; growlers; land ice and pack ice. A ship overwintering–frozen-in to the pack–was subjected to prolonged pressures, or sharp, intense “nipping,” as the ice shifted. Exploration/discovery vessels in this period were about 100-120’ long on deck and displaced 500 tons or less. The Atholl class fits these general parameters, but its design lineage was not from the stout hulls of the bomb vessels, like HMS Terror, Hecla, Fury and Erebus. With the disappearance of these “bombs”, the Admiralty moved to searching for the lost Franklin crews with heavily converted merchant hulls: HMS Enterprise, Investigator, Assistance, Resolute.

The handsome lines of the original Atholl class design from 1817 © Crown copyright. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London ZAZ3213

The Atholls were a different species altogether. Their full gundecks speak to their intended role: general-purpose warships. These 28-gun corvettes were designed just after the Napoleonic Wars had concluded. They fit into a category often called “donkey frigates” – corvettes that took on some of the duties of the more expensive to operate frigates – but they would have been considered light frigates in an earlier era. The original plans for the lead ship, Atholl, were co-signed by an important design team: Surveyors of the Navy Henry Peake, Joseph Turner, and Robert Seppings. Peake had designed the Vesuvius and Hecla class bomb vessels (HMS Terror and Erebus), while Seppings was implementing wide-ranging changes to the designs of all classes of ships. In contrast to the full bilges, rounded tumblehome, and sweeping sheer of 18th Century ships, Atholls had steeply rising floors (a “V-shaped lower hull), a distinctive flat rise at the waterline, and almost flat sheer along the length of the decks. In the early years of the 19th century, these were state-of-the-art design features. Above the deck, three towering masts supported the spars, cordage, and canvas of a three-masted, fully-rigged ship.

A rare rigging plan of an Atholl class dated 1844, from the collection of the National Maritime Museum. This unnamed ship was being converted to a troop ship, and shows the simplified rig of a barque, likely to have been used on many of the converted ships. In comparison to the earlier plan, the outline of the hull shows the building up of stern and bows. ZAZ5511© Crown copyright. National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

For their main armament, they were fitted with a modern, versatile battery of guns. Their gundeck was fitted with twenty heavy “smashers”: 32-pound carronades. This gave the class an outsized weight of broadside.1 Compared to the older “long guns” – traditional cannon – carronades were lighter and took less crew to work, but did not have the same range to strike more distant targets. The ships also had 9-pounder bow-chaser cannon and lighter carronades on the quarterdeck. While the bomb-vessels had been built to withstand the strain of firing their two massive mortars at land targets, the Atholls were designed to withstand the firing strain of broadsides of 32 and 18-pounder carronades.

A useful contrast between a carronade (near) and a cannon. These guns are located at the Dom Fernando II e Glória (1845) Portuguese frigate at Lisbon. Credit: GualdimG, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Fourteen ships were built in the period 1821-1828. Some of the class had been constructed in the East Indies, with design changes based on the availability of exotic timber and a shortage of iron knees.2 Three of these – Rattlesnake, Samarang, and Crocodile – appear to have had a second row of stern galleries (windows), at the level of the quarterdeck. At a time when decoration was being simplified or removed altogether, this odd arrangement for a warship made them appear similar to East India Company merchant ships.

Rattlesnake June 1849 watercolor by her captain, Owen Stanley, Public domain, Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake Album: Vol. I, Old Collection of David Scott Mitchell (1836-1907), p. 84 (imag. 487084) Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales (PXC 281, IE 3174589), Australia. via Wikimedia Commons

The Atholls served in some notable actions. HMS Talbot played an important role at the last great battle under sail, Navarino (1827), during the Greek War of Independence, and was also present at the 1840 Bombardment of Acre. North Star and Herald served in the First Anglo-Chinese or “Opium” War. In 1845-46, North Star was operating at New Zealand during the Flagstaff War at the same time the Franklin ships were overwintering at Beechey Island.

The Allied fleet at Navarino, 20 Oct. 1827. Reinagle, George Philip; P. & D. Colnaghi & Co Ltd; Plate 9. HMS Talbot is the ship firing at left near a burning hulk. Note the characteristic built-up look to the stern of the Atholl ships. Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London PAF4856

During their long careers, these ships proved to be very adaptable to new roles. They could be provisioned to serve out of distant posts of the British Empire, and could be quickly converted to carry troops. Units of the class got a new lease on life when many were converted to survey or depot/supply ships. Some common modifications appear from the 1830s on. Decoration at the bows and stern was minimized, and most of the armament was removed. The spaces of the old weather-deck were enclosed to form new focs’l and quarterdeck accommodation. The officer’s cabins and wardroom were extended, and the captain’s great cabin was moved up a deck to the newly-enclosed area aft. In some cases this building-up and decking-over created what in essence is a pint-sized two-decker. Later still, the ships were converted to a variety of rolls, such as receiving ships, supply ships, storehouses, or storage hulks. HMS Talbot’s final service, as a gunpowder hulk, is visually documented because of her proximity to the site of the tragic 1878 Princess Alice sinking. The last of the class known to exist was the former HMS Nimrod, scrapped in 1908.

Recovering victims of the Princess Alice disaster. Talbot in use as a gunpowder storage hulk at right (in other views the hulk has enormous “GUNPOWDER” lettering). Unlike other views, this shows the powder hulk still having a clearly defined bow and stern. The Collision on the Thames, 14 September 1878, The Graphic, Page 4 JR Brown, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Let’s briefly explore the Franklin search-related efforts of three of the class:3

HMS Rattlesnake (1822): Rattlesnake played a minor role in the Franklin search efforts. She was commissioned on 28 December 1852 by Commander Henry Trollope (with a compliment of 80) for conveying relief supplies to the (western) Arctic ships employed in the search for Sir John Franklin’s expedition: HMS Enterprise (Richard Collinson) and HMS Investigator (Robert McClure). Rattlesnake’s captain between 1845 and 1850 had been Owen Stanley, who had served on Terror during the 1836 George Back expedition, and had accompanied her and Erebus north in 1845.

“HMS Rattlesnake” by acclaimed artist Oswald Walters Brierly, who was onboard in 1848 when Rattlesnake was under the command of Owen Stanley. Credit: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London PAF5620

HMS Herald (1824): Captain Henry Kellett was involved in several of the western Arctic searches for the Franklin crews, from 1848 to 1850. He explored the Bering Strait (the early Admiralty assumption was that the Franklin ships may have been caught much further west along the Passage), discovered Herald Island, and in 1849 encountered HMS Investigator (Robert McClure). In the early period of searching, Kellett’s exploration complemented the searches of HMS Enterprise (James Clark Ross and later Richard Collinson) and Investigator. Herald was frequently used to resupply HMS Plover (T. E. L. Moore and then Maguire), during Plover’s six year vigil in the Pacific. In between Herald’s three forays up north, a succession of crews completed very important surveying along the Pacific coast.

This incredible 1857 photograph of HMS Herald at Sydney Harbour shows she retains her original corvette lines, full rig, and bow and stern decoration. The quarterdeck has been enclosed or decked over, as evident by the windows above the mizzen channels. She has been updated with iron davits and rails enclosing the new poop deck. The large stove pipe aft of the Foremast is evident on many plans. 79(b). H.M.S. Herald Sydney Harbour 1857, Album of views, illustrations and Macarthur family photographs, 1857-1879, PXA 4358/Vol. 1, https://collection.sl.nsw.gov.au/record/nM7lp5AY/B4xQpbaW72Xey

HMS Talbot (1824): After an active career, this veteran was converted to a storeship, to accompany Edward Augustus Inglefield’s 1854 provisioning mission to the Belcher Expedition at Beechey Island, in a similar way as Barretto Junior had helped provision the Franklin Ships in 1845.4 Unlike that ship, Talbot and Diligence (the other member of the squadron) continued on to Beechey, and were on hand to assist Inglefield’s command, HMS Phoenix, and North Star, to transport the crews of Belcher’s abandoned ships home. We are fortunate today to have a fine daguerreotype image of what Talbot looked like at this time on Inglefield’s stopover in Greenland. Talbot retains the trim appearance of a sixth-rate warship, with the characteristic updated variant of the “Nelson Chequer” of a white band picked out with black gunport lids. The transom shows some simplification, as the quarter galleries are not in evidence and the transom has been abbreviated to only five lights (windows). As with Herald above, there appears to be a building-up of the aft section to enclose new officers’ quarters.

HMS Talbot, June 1854 looking NW from Holsteinborg, Greenland. HMS Phoenix and the store ship Diligence were also depicted (cropped out from left). Phoenix’s captain, Edward Augustus Inglefield, is credited as the photographer[detail of] Credit: Captain Edward Augustus Inglefield, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons source is National Maritime Museum, Royal Museums Greenwich G4254

Please watch for our upcoming post that will explore Atholl class HMS North Star’s incredible history and design features!

  1. In an age of fighting sailing ships, whose main armament was disposed over either Port or Starboard batteries of cannon, this is the weight of broadside or “striking power” based on the notional weight of cannon balls fired from all guns in a single broadside fired from either side. Carronades gave small ships a “smashing” broadside. Atholls broadside added up to 383 pounds: (10X32lbs+3X18lbs+1X9lbs). For comparison, a roughly equivalent ship of the previous era, HMS Surprise, of Patrick O’Brien novels’ fame, had an armament of 9-pounder cannon and a total weight of broadside of 164 lbs. ↩︎
  2. See for example National Maritime Museum midships sectional drawing ZAZ3436 of Termagant (which became Herald), Samarang, Alligator which describes some differences in these East Indies built ships. An aborted plan of the 1830s would have even cut down the design to create 20-gun ships. ↩︎
  3. For an excellent primer on the bewildering number of vessels involved in various search efforts, including the ships above, please see W. Gillies Ross’s “The Type and Number of Expeditions in the Franklin Search 1847–1859,” ARCTIC Vol. 55, No. 1 (MARCH 2002) 57–69 https://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic55-1-57.pdf ↩︎
  4. The previous year, Inglefield had gone up accompanied by the Breadalbane store ship, which was destroyed by ice in August 1853. ↩︎

“Dreadful and Perilous Positions” – More Mumford Art!

Ships in desolation, in dire straits, in peril, beset, with icebergs the size of fortresses barreling down upon them. William Mumford painted what he saw, and what he saw was a lot of natural forces conspiring to destroy his ship, HMS Resolute. He was the ship’s carpenter, an important position, onboard a wooden ship surrounded by frigid water, ice, and barren rock.1

Here is more of the remarkable William T. Mumford collection of watercolours now in the custody of Library and Archives Canada.2 Please visit our recent post “A Resolute Perspective – What Mumford the Carpenter saw while searching for Franklin” for context, and the first group of artwork. Today, his little-known watercolours are a fine visual record of his 1852-1854 experiences on board Resolute, a member of the Sir Edward Belcher Expedition looking for the lost crews of Sir John Franklin. This instalment documents the transit up to Greenland and the early period of the searches. Mumford’s keen eye for detail will feature in several upcoming posts! Additional information has been supplied, mainly from passages in Mumford’s shipmate, George F. McDougall’s published journal The eventful voyage of H.M. discovery ship “Resolute” to the Arctic regions: in search of Sir John Franklin and the missing crews of H.M. discovery ships “Erebus” and “Terror.”3

“The first view of Greenland, Cape Desolation 21 May 1852” the squadron is all depicted, with Resolute and Intrepid in the foreground, passing some bergy bits. Credit: LAC 86-18-3
“The expedition at Anchor, Whalefish Islands. Taken from Kron Prins Island, Greenland May 1852.” The ships are identified (from left to right) HMS Intrepid, Resolute, North Star, Assistance, Pioneer. This view appears very similar to a calotype that Dr. William Domville, Resolute’s surgeon, captured somewhere on the Expedition. (Today in the custody of Royal Museums Greenwich P36CAL) Credit: LAC 86-18-4
“Four Top Iceberg, Wargal Straits, Greenland June 13th 1852.” These impressive bergs were encountered in Waygat or Waygate Channel. Credit: LAC 86-18-5
“Main Top Iceberg, Wargal Straits, Greenland June 13th 1852.”Credit: LAC 86-18-6
“The Resolute [left] and another ship in Perilous Position in the Ice, Melville Bay, Greenland” ca. 26 June 1852. Mumford has added some colour by showing Resolute with her distictive red band around the ice channels. George F. M’Dougall relates in his published journal that on the 26th Resolute was badly nipped between a moving flow and land ice. The ship’s bell rung on its own, the boats were dragged out to the ice, and the rudder was destroyed. The vessel at right should be Assistance, which had a single white band, was nearby, and was cutting in to an ice dock. Mumford would have been heavily involved in setting up the spare rudder. Credit: LAC 86-18-7
“The Alexander, North Star, Assistance[distant], Intrepid[distant], Resolute, Pioneer off Melville Bay, Greenland July 1852.” Given the complete absence of McLellan, a whaling ship which damaged Alexander and North Star, and the freeing of the ships, we can speculate that this is later in July. Alexander (a whaler from Dundee) accompanied the naval ships longest of the whalers. Credit: LAC 86-18-8
“Beechey Island, 629 feet” [ca. 10 Aug. 1852] Our ID of this vessel would be HMS North Star. With Erebus and Terror Bay not yet clear of ice, she is waiting on the 10th or 11th to take up her inshore position off Beechey as the expedition’s longtime depot ship. Credit: LAC 86-18-10
“The Resolute (?) in a Dreadful Position in the ice off Beechey Island (?) 16 August 1852” From M’Dougall’s diary we know that, while near Assistance Harbour on an errand to drop a whaler off at Cape Hotham, Resolute was again in peril of receiving a nip, with Intrepid nearby. Resolute (red band) and her crew has sensibly unshipped her rudder and hung it over the stern. Credit: LAC 86-18-12
“Resolute and Intrepid in Winter Quarters, Melville Island November 16th 1852” Resolute’s first overwintering location. Credit: LAC 86-18-13

  1. HMS Assistance (flagship), Intrepid, Pioneer were crushed in ice or otherwise foundered. As related in the previous Mumford post, Resolute, incredibly, drifted to discovery by whaling ships 1,900 km East. North Star survived her Beechey Island ordeals to help evacuate the other crews. Considering the marine casualties, and compared to Franklin’s two-ship Expedition, very few crew members died. ↩︎
  2. Source: Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1986-18. Consulted MFL reel H-1662 and separate artwork. ↩︎
  3. George F. McDougall, Resolute’s sailing master, published his journal (1857 publication), which is available online: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=aeu.ark:/13960/t6737jj60&seq=12 ↩︎

A Resolute Perspective – what Mumford the Carpenter saw while searching for Franklin

William T. Mumford (1830 – 1908) was a young apprentice carpenter when he volunteered for service with HMS Resolute–captained by Henry Kellett–to scour the Arctic for Sir John Franklin and the missing crews of HMS Erebus and Terror (last seen by Europeans in 1845). Resolute was one of five vessels in a squadron commanded by Sir Edward Belcher. As Ship’s Carpenter, Mumford was rated a warrant officer. He kept a diary and other records of this 1852-1854 expedition. He also created a detailed visual record. He documented the Belcher ships, mostly during their long imprisonment in ice, their Beechey Island staging base, and important or perilous moments. Once Resolute was abandoned, he kept up with his diary and continued to illustrate his difficult journey back. Today, these interesting records are in the collection of Library and Archives Canada.

Mumford was an active participant to the important events of this phase of Arctic exploration. The two main search parties, Belcher in Assistance, Kellett in Resolute, respectively accompanied by their steam tenders, Pioneer and Intrepid, left their depot ship, North Star, at Beechey Island, to push further north and west. Once the ships were beset in ice, crews conducted further searches using sledges. Though they found virtually no new information out about the fate of the Franklin crews, they surveyed large swaths of the Arctic archipelago. A happy discovery was the location of the long-beset HMS Investigator at Mercy Bay. Kellett ordered Robert McClure, Investigator’s captain, to abandon his command and bring in his ailing crew. During June 1853 McClure sledged to Resolute. The next Spring, with his ships still firmly seized in ice, Belcher made the difficult decision to abandon all primary expedition vessels (still tightly frozen in), and retreat to Beechey to seek passage home. Kellett’s whole party, including the Investigators, were doing quite well after all this time, but Belcher ordered them to go.

HMS Resolute beset, with ship’s boats on the ice and her rudder swung out over the stern. The joys of consulting microfilm from a vintage reader! Credit: Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1986-18

The Mumford collection was acquired by the National Archives of Canada in 1984 with the assistance of a grant from the Government of Canada under the Cultural Property Export and Import Act.1 In contrast to many of the official works and the officers’ records documenting the search efforts, Mumford’s archival fonds provides a different perspective: what a warrant officer with a keen eye for details witnessed of this great era in Arctic exploration. Mumford went on to have an important career with Lloyd’s of London, as a surveyor of ships from 1857-1889.2 He knew his ships, and so his depictions can be considered an accurate visual record. The diary was microfilmed soon after acquisition, and copies passed to Cambridge University and the National Maritime Museum. Interleaved with the text of some 150 pages were watercolours and drawings of ships and topographical scenes, maps, printed poster playbills for onboard theatrical entertainments, and some later correspondence (mostly a curated collection of press clippings that show Mumford to have kept up on developments in Canada’s distant North). After filming, the watercolours were removed and housed separately for long-term conservation. Of Mumford’s diary, we viewed the microfilm copy at LAC last October, and we failed spectacularly to decipher most entries! We hope the fine visual record, presented in chronological order with additional context, are of interest:

“Winter quarters at Melville Island, taken from the East” Feb. 1853. Even fitted for overwintering and bulwarked with snow, the contrast between the doughty search vessel Resolute, (right) and the rakish, fine lines of Intrepid, is notable. Credit: LAC 86-18-18
“HMS North Star forced on shore by the ice at Beechey, near Cape Spencer”, This dramatic June 1853 view shows HMS North Star, the Belcher Expedition’s depot ship, located at Beechey Island, the site of the Franklin Expedition’s first wintering. Credit: LAC 1986-18-20
“The Last Move” September 1853. HMS Intrepid, the steam tender, is leading Resolute with sail and steam up. Credit: LAC 1986-18-22
“The Resolute and Intrepid in winter quarters, 1853-1854, taken from the ‘Long Walk’ looking East” Ca. Dec. 1853. This shows the two ships now wintering at their second encampment, located (in the moving pack) off Dealy Island. LAC 86-18-25
“HMS Resolute abandoned May 15, 1854.” A depiction of the beginnings of the sledging trip of the combined crew of the Resolute and Investigator (Robert McClure’s ship, abandoned earlier at Mercy Bay) making a start towards Beechey Island, with Resolute and Intrepid still beset. Resolute was abandoned in good order with flags nailed to the mast trucks.3 Credit: LAC 1986-18-26
HMS North Star, still at Beechey. Dated May 1854, this remarkable view shows Beechey’s imposing and bleak cliffs. Ashore, Northumberland House, the storehouse the Belcher crews built, and a large boat which is likely Sir John Ross’s rescue yacht Mary, are visible. [Detail of] LAC 1986-18-27
“HMS Diving Bell, Phoenix” This dramatic watercolour appears to show Edward A. Inglefield’s command, HMS Phoenix, in a perilous situation. September 1854. At this time Inglefield was engaged in returning Robert McClure and the crew of Investigator to England. The distant vessel could be the accompanying HMS Talbot or North Star. Credit: LAC 1986-18-29

  1. Source: Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1986-18. Consulted MFL reel H-1662 and separate artwork. ↩︎
  2. Charlie Kelly “The remarkable ship Resolute,” https://hec.lrfoundation.org.uk/whats-on/blogs/the-remarkable-ship-resolute ↩︎
  3. Mumford’s ship would eventually free itself from the ice, to drift on an incredible journey. Salvaged by American whalers in 1855, Resolute would be presented back to Great Britain in 1856. For a detailed summary see the online HMS Resolute project: https://www.hms-resolute.co.uk/the-nutshell/ ↩︎

A Lonely Cenotaph to Lost Searchers

One of the remarkable monuments at Beechey Island, connected with the searches for the Sir John Franklin 1845 expedition, is the “Franklin Cenotaph.” It may be the oldest cenotaph – an incredibly early example of a memorial that commemorates sailors individually by name – in Canada. This distinctive monument is located inland of the ruins of Northumberland House and the fallen mast of Sir John Ross’s yacht Mary. Beechey Island is an isolated, barren place, just off the southwest coast of Devon Island, in the High Arctic, in present-day Nunavut. It had been the site of the Franklin Expedition’s first winter encampment, when HM ships Erebus and Terror had sought shelter here in 1845 and been frozen-in. In 1846, before the ice released the ships, three members of the Expedition were buried just up the beach. The area later became prominent as a staging base/supply depot in the expeditions sent to try and ascertain the fate of Franklin and his crews. Today, this incredibly remote 170-year old cenotaph serves as a lasting memorial to the human cost of these efforts.

The monument, ca. 1978. Credit: NWT Archives/Stuart M. Hodgson fonds/N-2017-008: 0918

A brief description of the monument could be: A column now white but sometimes black, in the form of an octagonal piece of ships’ machinery, affixed with plaques, with a larger one predominating, surmounted by a large finial (ball), the column approached by a marble slab on a concrete base, with the whole raised on a small platform of cemented limestone. The Belcher column and Bellot’s monument AND Lady Franklin’s memorial plaque have a unique history, like many other relics, ruins, graves, and wrecks at Beechey. This composite monument, often simplified to “the Franklin Cenotaph,” was begun in June 1854 by the crew of HMS North Star, under the command of W.J.S. Pullen. Its original intent was to honour sailors who had perished in the great efforts to locate the crews of Franklin’s vanished ships. North Star was serving as a depot and stores vessel for the larger Royal Navy search effort, Sir Edward Belcher, commanding.

Map of the 1845-46 Franklin Expedition sites, and a record of their discovery[annotated with approximate locations of some sites mentioned in this post, including the cenotaph, located just behind the square Northumberland House] The British Library, “Papers and Despatches relating to the Arctic Searching Expeditions of 1850-51. Together with a few remarks as to the probable course pursued by Sir John Franklin, etc. [Compiled by James Mangles. With maps.(London: 1851)] No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

This new “Belcher column” adhered to the classical definition of a cenotaph: It memorialized the dead without being a burial site. By commemorating enlisted personnel – sailors and marines – it was also incredibly rare for its time.1 Small plaques on each face of the column identify 13 deceased members of HM ships Investigator, Resolute, Assistance, Intrepid, whose remains were buried elsewhere.2 These men are not all commemorated in the same manner; some entries are descriptive, some employ religious passages, some are brief.

The column was reportedly made out of the interior section (the spindle) of the capstan of the American whaling ship McLellan. McLellan had been lost two years previously, on 8 July 1852 on the way to Arctic whaling grounds, in Melville Sound, when it and a fleet of British whaling ships had been frozen in pack ice, alongside Belcher’s small Royal Navy squadron, then journeying up to begin the search. McLellan had run afoul of North Star. It was then crushed by fast moving ice. The vessel must have remained on the surface or pinned to the ice for some time, as much seems to have been salvaged. McLellan’s spars would also be a source of timbers used to construct Northumberland House, the large storehouse constructed soon after the ships got to Beechey.3

Dismantling the very old whaling ship Rousseau at New Bedford MA, ca. 1893. This shows many of the spars, masts, timbers, and other materials that would have been sourced from the similar ship McLellan, that were used in Beechey Island construction projects. note the crews are down to the level of the lower deck, and the vessel is still afloat with intact coppering! Credit: Joseph G. Tirrell 2012.008.0055, Digital Commonwealth (CC BY-NC-ND)

The second major component of the monument was added later that summer to memorialize Lt. Joseph-René Bellot. Bellot, an officer of the French Navy, had accompanied Captain Edward Augustus Inglefield, commanding HMS Phoenix, on the same 1853 journey to resupply Belcher’s ships that resulted in the loss of the Breadalbane supply ship nearby.

Portrait gravé sur acier de l’explorateur français Joseph-René Bellot (1826-1853), en tête de son ouvrage Journal d’un voyage aux mers polaires à la recherche de Sir John Franklin, introduction de Paul Boiteau, Paris, Perrotin, 1866.Credit: Wikinade, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Bellot was a seasoned Arctic explorer who had already been out as second in command on the 1851 William Kennedy expedition. He was respected and admired by his comrades. As Phoenix and Breadalbane were driven away from Beechey, in a gale, he had volunteered to brave the ice and elements to carry despatches north to Wellington Channel, to deliver them to Belcher. Bellot disappeared 18 August, when the ice suddenly opened around him. This loss was felt deeply by the searchers in the Arctic.

HMS Phoenix, with Breadalbane supply ship behind on 18 Aug. 1853, in the same perilous conditions that Bellot, transporting despatches, was lost in. Credit: Admiral Sir Edward Augustus Inglefield, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In August 1854, when Inglefield returned to the Arctic on the next resupply effort, he brought up a plaque dedicated to the memory of Bellot to be added to the Belcher column. The plaque had been commissioned by an important friend, Sir John Barrow, (Second Secretary at the Admiralty and the second Barrow heavily involved in polar exploration) and was cast in a headstone-like shape.

The monument as it appeared soon after construction, with the Bellot plaque, whose text is legible here, mounted low on the front face. The Illustrated London News, 28 October 1854[detail of] Unidentified engraver, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Francis Leopold McClintock’s search expedition of 1858 brought up the last major addition to the monument: A large marble slab commissioned by Lady Jane Franklin, Sir John Franklin’s widow. The marble was inscribed with text dedicating it “To the Memory of Franklin, Crozier, Fitzjames, and all their gallant brother officers and faithful companions…” This, aptly, concluded the memorialization program on the monument by incorporating the lost explorers into the monument to the lost searchers of those explorers. The marble was to have been brought north in 1855 by an American expedition looking for Dr. Kane, commanded by Lt. Henry J. Hartstene. That expedition turned back when they located Kane, so the plaque waited at Disko, Greenland, for three years. McClintock’s expedition routed it on up (with an additional small plaque added to reference this) and deposited the marble flat on the ground in front of the column.

One of the original oddities of the monument is the metal “Post Office” letterbox panel affixed to a rear surface. Despite the prevalence of seances in Victorian England, this was not intended as a correspondence box to the lost, to communicate with the spirit world. According to an October 1854 London Illustrated News article, which featured a sketch of the monument, this letterbox was actually functional, intended for future visitors to leave letters as a receipt of having visited the Island.

Lt. Allen Young’s 1876 photograph of the monument, looking towards the beach at Beechey, with Lady Franklin’s marble on the ground and the post office plaque on the lower rear face. Credit: Allen Young “Cruise of the Pandora” (London, 1876) Page 43. Public domain via Library and Archives Canada 1984-109 NPC

In 1876, Allen Young, in HMS Pandora, revisited Beechey’s lonely shores. He had last been there while serving as Navigator on Fox, McClintock’s ship. He took a valuable photographic record of the site that was incorporated into his published journal.4 At this time the monument was painted black. Young described opening the letterbox on the monument to retrieve a single document. Pen pals were in short supply at Beechey, and the only contents were a memo left by Belcher more than two decades before.

The cenotaph, like so many other relics, wrecks, and remains at Beechey, seems to have mostly escaped the ravages of time. A half-century after its installation, in August 1904, the Canadian ship DGS Neptune visited Beechey, as part of the Dominion Government Expedition, A.P. Low commanding. This visit saw expedition members raise the marble plaque for a photograph and then reorient it to face upwards (Low’s interesting description of Beechey and the cenotaph is in this 1906 report). At this time a flagpole may have been installed at the rear or very near the monument.

The Dominion Government expedition’s visit to the memorial, 15 August 1904. A.P. Low describes how they found a note from the previous year in a sealed case attached to the rear of the cenotaph, left by Roald Amundsen, whose ship Gjoa was unlocated at this time. The note was forwarded to the Norwegian government. Credit: Albert Peter Low / Library and Archives Canada / PA-053580

During the 1922-23 visit to the monument, on one of Captain J.E. Bernier’s yearly voyages/sovereignty patrols north in CGS Arctic, the marble appears to have been set into a more secure and aesthetically pleasing angled concrete base. The head of the marble now rested just under the Bellot plaque. Other than the removal of the flagpole, and the application of white paint, the memorial has remained substantially unaltered since then. It continues to stand tall in a lonely vigil at Beechey, down through the decades. Today, the Franklin Cenotaph is a powerful site of memory connected with the search for the Northwest Passage, and an important tribute to the men who died far from home looking for lost comrades.

Capt. Bernier, CGS Arctic, with other crew at the Franklin Cenotaph, 1923. Credit: Library and Archives Canada R216, Vol. 14946, p54.

Please see our 2024/03 update to this story, where we used an archival source, William Mumford’s diary, to determine more accurate provenance of the column to a different part id the McLellan whaling ship. We still have many questions about the monument, including what dates sections of the monument were altered or rebuilt, why the small plaques were sometimes missing from archival photos, and the subsequent history of archaeology at the monument. There are many discrepancies in the sources, and we know there are folks out there who know more than us, so we are happy to stand corrected! We also hope this post spurs greater study of this important memorial. If you’ve visited Beechey Island, we’d love to see your photos!

Northwest Territories Commissioner Stuart Hodgson (at left – the creator of the Franklin Probe, a maritime historian and a Canadian naval veteran) and others help replace the Cenotaph plaques with replicas during a July 1978 visit.

  1. This cenotaph may even be unique on Canada. We have never heard of one that commemorates not just senior officers but the regular sailors and marines of military ships, erected before the 20th century. A hundred years earlier, the terrible loss of more than a thousand officers and enlisted men, when HMS Victory (1737-1744) sank in the English Channel, had resulted in the kind of traditional commemoration to the leader, Admiral Sir John Balchen, at Westminster Abbey. The oldest naval monument now located in Canada is Montreal’s Lord Horatio Nelson column (constructed 1809). ↩︎
  2. Thomas Morgan of HMS Investigator, who died 1854-05-22 onboard North Star, is buried nearby with the three original Franklin crewmembers. Aside from Morgan and Bellot (who is commemorated twice on this monument), the other members of search crews memorialized on the column (with their ships and dates of death) are: William Cutbush HMS Assistance 1853-02-27; Isaac Barnett HMS Assistance 1854-01-28; George Harris HMS Assistance 1854-01-09, John Ames, HMS Investigator 1853-04-11; John Boyle HMS Investigator 1853-04-05; H.H. Sainsbury HMS Investigator 1853-11-14; Thomas Mobley HMS Resolute 1852-10-19; George Drover HMS Intrepid 1852-12-12; John Coombs HMS Intrepid 1853-05-12; Thomas Hood HMS Intrepid 1854-01-02; John Kerr HMS Investigator 1853-04-13; James Wilkie HMS Intrepid 1854-02-2. These names can be verified at Maritime Memorials at RMG. ↩︎
  3. Brian D. Powell Polar Record 42 Issue 4 provides a detailed summary of the construction of this and other monuments at Beechey, and there is still more work to do on the commemorative intent of the various monuments. Other evidence for the source of the Belcher column, the whaling ship McLellan, is found in Barr and Stein’s January 2017 article “Frederick J. Krabbé, last man to see HMS Investigator afloat, May 1854” Journal of the Hakluyt Society. We have usually encountered spindles with ten or more sides as part of naval capstans. ↩︎
  4. Young had been sent in HMS Pandora to aid the 1875-76 British Arctic Expedition, which encountered many difficulties. Young’s ship, a reinforced gunboat, would be acquired as USS Jeanette for the Grealy expedition, which ended in more shipwreck and tragedy. His account The Two Voyages of the Pandora ; 1875-76 has a chapter (pp. 43-46) about Beechey with a brief description of the letter box, Northumberland House, the Mary yacht left by Sir John Ross, and other boats on the site: https://archive.org/embed/cu31924091208565 ↩︎

Oh, They’ll be No More Yachting from Beechey, me Boys!

Arctic Album #7 (trip of SS Beothic 1926-1927) Credit : Department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada / Library and Archives Canada, Accession 1974-366 R 216 Vol. 14948.

One of the remarkable relics at Beechey Island, connected with the searches for the Sir John Franklin 1845 expedition, is a large mast which has collapsed along the beach, pointing out to Erebus and Terror Bay. This stood for years in front of the ruins of Northumberland House and a motley collection of memorials. Beechey Island is an isolated, barren place, just off the southwest coast of Devon Island, in the High Arctic, in present-day Nunavut. It had been the site of the Franklin Expedition’s first winter encampment, when HM ships Erebus and Terror had sought shelter here in 1845 and been frozen-in. In 1846, before the Bay released the ships, three members of the Expedition were buried just up the beach. The island and surroundings later became prominent as a staging base/supply depot in the expeditions sent to try and ascertain the fate of Franklin and his crews. More searchers would die at and around Beechey, and the Breadalbane supply ship would be wrecked nearby in 1853. Today, burials, monuments, ruins and shipwrecks remain.

Beechey’s Erebus Harbour as it appeared in 1903. The Belcher Column and Bellot monument is at left (Painted black here but later white, with Lady Franklin’s white marble plaque on the ground), with the ruins of Northumberland House and an erect mast standing nearest Erebus and Terror Bay. Credit: Albert Peter Low collection at the Canadian Museum of History, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The mast is a significant artifact with an important story.1 It is reputed to be the last large remnant of the Mary, Sir John Ross’s yacht. This trim little 12-ton cutter-rigged craft had been brought North by Ross, and accompanied his much larger yacht, the brig Felix. It had been built for the trip out, and both it and 70-foot, 100-ton Felix (sometimes referred to as a brig, sometimes a schooner) were reinforced for polar service with strong hulls and iron or zinc hull sheathing. Felix was Ross’s search ship, but Mary was intended for a different purpose.

In August 1850, Sir Horatio Austin’s crews of HMS Resolute and Assistance (accompanied by HM Steamships Pioneer and Intrepid) and Captain William Penny’s ships Lady Franklin and Sophia made exciting discoveries at and around Beechey Island.2 These first traces of the lost expedition invigorated search efforts.

The heavies form up! “Captain Austin’s Arctic Expedition; HMS Resolute and squadron.” Illustrated London News 11 May 1850. Credit: Edwin Weedon, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Ross arrived days later in Felix, honouring a promise he had made to come to the aid of Franklin. He was 72 years old, and his sense of duty and concern for his friend brought him out of retirement. When the Admiralty declined his offer to lead an expedition, the Hudson’s Bay Company funded the expedition. His plan, should the lost expedition not be located or turn up, was to leave Mary behind.

Map of the 1845-46 Franklin Expedition sites, and a record of their discovery[annotated with approximate locations of some sites mentioned in this post] The British Library, “Papers and Despatches relating to the Arctic Searching Expeditions of 1850-51. Together with a few remarks as to the probable course pursued by Sir John Franklin, etc. [Compiled by James Mangles. With maps.(London: 1851)] No restrictions, via Wikimedia Commons

Ross knew better than anyone the value of a cache of food and stores and a serviceable boat. On his 1829 expedition, accompanied by his nephew James Clark Ross, his ship Victory had been trapped in ice. Three years later they were forced to abandon their refuge. They retreated to Fury Beach, where they had to spend yet another long, dark winter frozen-in. But Fury Beach was their salvation: Parry’s 1825 expedition had left a cache of supplies and three boats from their wrecked ship, HMS Fury. The boats and supplies allowed an expedition, which had been widely assumed to have ended in death and disaster, to escape to Prince Regent Inlet and rescue. Ross hoped that some similar depot and boat could help Franklin Expedition survivors, or anyone else trapped in the area.

Edward F. Finden’s engraving (John Tallis & Co) of John Ross’s crew, sailing in some of HMS Fury’s old boats, encountering the whaling ship Isabella, his old ship, in 1833 after four years. Ross hoped that Mary would be involved in a similar mission. PAD6090 Courtesy of the National Maritime Museum.

With larger Admiralty-supported expeditions scouring the Arctic, it was time for Ross to return home. Mary was initially left west of Beechey at Cape Spencer, packed with a good store of provisions. The boat was moved soon after to Erebus Harbour when the Edward Belcher expedition incorporated it into new construction. The crew of HMS North Star, the depot ship supplying the Belcher search ships, dragged Mary up the beach and deposited her under Beechey’s soaring cliffs. The yacht was intended as a companion to Northumberland House, which was packed with useful supplies and provisions. Stranded crews that came to Beechey, once they had sheltered and replenished their stocks, could strike off in the yacht in the very short navigation season that those high latitudes allow. Mary and Northumberland House functioned together as their own extraordinarily remote lifesaving establishment. Robert McClure informed the crew of his long-trapped ship, HMS Investigator, that one group would travel to Cape Spencer to board Mary.3 As every one of the Belcher search ships would later need to be abandoned, with their crews completing harrowing marches to safety, the idea had merit.

In 1876, Allen Young, on his second Arctic expedition in the retired gunboat Pandora, found Mary to be in very good shape, still tight and dry and with mast up and sails stowed onboard, in a mostly dry cabin.4 Northumberland House, by comparison, had been damaged and ransacked (reportedly by bears). Young had been one of the last to see this same spot from the Fox, as the navigator on the Capt. Francis Leopold McClintock’s 1858 expedition. With the Pandora’s departure, Mary was again left to her lonely fate.

Mary as the yacht appeared in 1876, still substantially intact. The placement appears to have been up the beach from most of the sites, closer to Cape Riley. Credit: Allen Young “Cruise of the Pandora” (London, 1876) Page 41. Public domain via Library and Archives Canada 1984-109 NPC

Occasional visits by notable Arctic explorers continued into the 20th Century. Mary sustained more damage and deterioration and at some point the mast was taken from near the hull and erected in front of Northumberland House, near a large whaling boat.5 The hull assumed a prominent list, and the decking deteriorated. Visitors also speeded deterioration by taking a few choice souvenirs. The derelict vessel was photographed in 1923 and 1927, during annual trips to the Arctic by Canadian government ships.

Inspector C.E. Wilcox and Mrs. Craig standing in the remains of the yacht Mary, 1923. Credit: John Davidson Craig / Canada. Dept. of Indian and Northern Affairs / Library and Archives Canada / PA-186867 Arctic Album #5, trip of CGS Arctic 1923 R 216 Vol. 14946.

During the 1970s and 80s, the mast leaned at an increasingly rakish angle, until it fell to the ground sometime before 1992. Like everything else at Beechey, the mast is undergoing a very gradual deterioration. We conclude our brief account of a yacht that was intended to serve as a rescue vessel with an important takeaway: If you plan to be shipwrecked in the high latitudes of the Canadian Arctic somewhere around Beechey Island, you can no longer depend on Mary to yacht away from it!

  1. Season Osborne’s detailed history of Mary “What Happened to the Mary? A Historic Site ravaged through time” (Above and Beyond – Canada’s Arctic Journal 2015/2 pp. 23-27) helped sort out many contradictions. It is available at https://issuu.com/arctic_journal/docs/above_n_beyond_marchapril_2015/ ↩︎
  2. This is a simplified account of discoveries, for a more fulsome treatment of the moment of the first discoveries at Cape Riley (by Capt. Ommanney of HMS Assistance) and Capt. Penny’s team, including R.A. Goodsir, finding the graves at Beechey, please see Alison Freebairn’s finger-post blog and Logan Zachary’s Illuminator blog on the topic. ↩︎
  3. George F. McDougall “The Eventful Voyage of H.M. discovery ship “Resolute”…(London: Longman et. al. 1857) P216. McClure ended up encountering the HMS Resolute party sent to look for him under Lt. Pim and evacuating everyone to Resolute). Available at Babel.hathitrust. ↩︎
  4. The above source refers to the mast as having been moved sometime around the Second World War, but the 1903 photo seems to show a similar mast in front of Northumberland House, which is more substantial than the flag pole that had been on the site during the 1870s. ↩︎
  5. This section is drawn from Lt. Allen Young’s Cruise of the Pandora; from the private journal kept by Allen Young commander of the expedition (1876; republished by Cambridge University Press 2012). The illustrations are from a copy of the original at Library and Archives Canada. ↩︎

The Vessels of the 2022 Government of Canada archaeological expedition to HM Ships Erebus and Terror National Historic Site

What a cast of characters, what a mise en scène! Since arriving off King William Island, Nunavut, in late August, 2022, the Parks Canada Research Vessel David Thompson has remained near the famous Sir John Franklin expedition shipwrecks longer than previous seasons. What amazing discoveries must the Underwater Archaeology Team (UAT) be making at these incredible mid-19th Century exploration ships right now?! Will the dive team working from David Thompson or the specialized dive barge, Qiniqtiryuaq, uncover new information about the last days of this ill-fated effort to locate the Northwest Passage?

Composite Google Earth image, with RV David Thompson superimposed from below GE capture, and sonar images of wrecks of HM ships Erebus and Terror modified from Parks Canada images. Date and location of all ships indicated is only an approximation.1

There has not yet been any official reporting about the 2022 Parks Canada work. It is a safe bet that the balance of research is focusing on the fragile or “dynamic” site: HMS Erebus (discovered by Parks during the Sep. 2014 search in Wilmot and Crampton Bay, after years of searches which followed up on Inuit oral history of a wreck in this area).2 In the long 165-years that Erebus remained unlocated, there must have been decades where the wreck, in the frigid waters of Wilmot and Crampton Bay, would have appeared almost untouched by time’s passage. Unfortunately, her condition has worsened in the last years, as ice or ocean swells take their toll on upper surfaces, such as the weather deck and supporting structures. The wreck is only in about 11 M of water. There is real urgency to conduct a thorough survey.

HMS Terror is located about 60 km North, somewhere in the aptly named Terror Bay (discovered Sep. 2016 by the Arctic Research Foundation’s ship Martin Bergmann, following up on a tip from Gjoa Haven resident and Canadian Ranger Sammy Kogvik). The seabed is about 24 M deep, and the wreck’s depth and location seem to be working to better shelter it. We hope at some point that the team are able to shift the archaeological exploration to Terror. Previous Remote Operated Vehicle surveys of the interior have shown a wealth of artifacts requiring further study.

The ships (and shipwrecks) of the 2022 Franklin Fleet:

RV David Thompson (2017) LOA 95’ / 29m TDISP 228 tons. Originally Canadian Coast Guard Fisheries Patrol vessel CCGS Arrow Post (1992-2016) before transfer to Parks Canada. Now equipped with up to two Rigid Inflatable Boats and a hydraulic crane. RV David Thompson made a brief transit back through the Simpson Strait to Gjoa Haven 7 September, but appears to have returned to the vicinity of Erebus the next day.

RV David Thompson, a day after her return to the Coast Guard station at Prescott, ON. 1 November 2022, after a busy archaeology season at the Franklin wrecks and elsewhere. Credit http://www.warsearcher.com
RV David Thompson during the 2019 expedition to the wreck sites. Credi: Kerry Raymond, CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Parks Canada Dive Barge “Qiniqtiryuaq” (2017) approximately 50’X 30’ / 15.3 X 9.3 m displacement unknown. Fitted with three 20’ converted sea containers with a tool shop/archaeological lab, a meeting space, a decompression chamber. During 2018 the barge received a powerful hydraulic crane.

CCGS Pierre Radisson Icebreaker (1977) LOA 323’ / 98.3 m TDISP 8,200 tons Arctic class 3 breaker. Early in its career, this was the base of operations of Dr. Joseph B. MacInnis’s 1981 search effort for the Beechey Island wreck Breadalbane, supply ship to the 1853 Franklin search effort. This year it assisted or escorted RV David Thompson on the journey to Gjoa Haven. It can help to replenish and refuel the Parks Canada vessels, be called upon to ensure the security of the sites, and be involved in towing the dive barge.

CCGS Pierre Radisson (at right) refuels HMCS Moncton during the Sep. 2015 Operation QIMMIQ in Nunavut. Credit: Department of National Defence (Corporal Felicia Ogunniya) SW2015-0226-1306

CCGS Sir Wilfred Laurier (1986) LOA 262’ / 83M TDISP 4,600 tons Arctic Class 2 Light Icebreaker and tender. This ship is a veteran of previous Franklin Expedition search efforts and Parks Canada archaeology efforts. During the 2019 season, Laurier contributed anchors to help tether the barge Qiniqtiryuaq above Erebus. Based on recent marine traffic information (2022/09/20), and the onset of colder weather off King William Island, we believe the Laurier is helping to conclude the dive season. CCGS Pierre Radisson has moved on to Hudson’s Bay. Laurier’s last positions showed it stationary near Ambush Rock after having moved westward from Gjoa Haven through the Simpson Strait and Storis Passage, towards the vicinity of the Erebus site. The ship appears to be accompanied by an 8m, 15 ton light Coast Guard Boat which may be ferrying supplies back from the actual wreck site to the Laurier.

CCGS Sir Wilfred Laurier (left) and HMCS Moncton in search of HMS Terror as part of Operation QIMMIQ on September 2, 2015. Credit: Department of National Defence (Photo: Corporal Felicia Ogunniya) SW2015-0226-980

HMS Erebus (1826-ca.1849) Hecla class bomb vessel extensively modified for polar expeditions. For the 1845 expedition to locate the Northwest Passage, the massively reinforced vessel was fitted with an auxiliary method of propulsion (steam railroad engine) and a retractable screw propeller. Lead ship of expedition, carrying Sir John Franklin, officer commanding and Erebus’s captain, James Fitzjames. LOA ca. 120’ / 36.6 m davits on transom to stem knee, sparred length unknown TDISP 370 tons

The Franklin expedition ships, HMS Erebus and Terror, setting out with fanfare in late May 1845 from Greenhithe. This was originally published for the 24 May 1845 edition of the Illustrated London News. (Via wikimedia commons) The two ships, from separate classes of bomb vessels, were virtually indistinguishable after many updates for polar expeditions.
Credit: Parks Canada, Crown Copyright.

HMS Terror (1813-ca.1849) Vesuvius class bomb vessel extensively modified for polar expeditions. War of 1812 veteran. For the 1845 expedition to locate the Northwest Passage, the massively reinforced vessel was fitted with an auxiliary method of propulsion (steam railroad locomotive) and a retractable screw propeller. Commanded by Captain Francis Crozier, second-in-command of expedition. LOA ca. 120’ / 36.6 m davits on transom to stem knee, sparred length unknown. TDISP 320 tons

A sonar image of the HMS Terror wreck, ca. 2017. credit: Parks Canada, Crown Copyright.
Credit: Parks Canada, Crown Copyright.

  1. The precise location of the Franklin ships has not been released, and the general vicinity of each site is protected and not accessible to the public. ↩︎
  2. We most likely won’t hear for months about this season’s work, or a reported April or May site visit (which would have involved an ice camp over either wreck site) ↩︎