Tag: HMS Phoenix

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. ↩︎

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. ↩︎

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 ↩︎

Breadalbane Part 3: Building a Beautiful Wreck in Miniature

One-hundred-and-seventy years ago today, a ship was dying, incredibly far North. Early on 21 August, 1853, ice suddenly penetrated the Breadalbane’s cargo holds, where vital supplies had been stored a few days previously. The crew scrambled away to safety. The ship sank like a stone in 330’ of water. All these years later, what remains of this relic of the great searches to find the lost Sir John Franklin Expedition? What if today we had the technology to “Drain the Barrow Strait” (to borrow a National Geographic-inspired dramatic device) and check up on Breadalbane? Well, on this important day, we are doing just that – in reduced scale!

“A ship above and a ship below”–The wreck diorama accompanied by a contemporary view. E.A. Inglefield’s illustration of HMS Phoenix towing the ship, Credit Library and Archives Canada mikan 2837866 AND http://www.warsearcher.com

This third post will show our construction of an archaeologically-inspired scale diorama of the Breadalbane wreck site–part of the Beechey Island National Historic Site of Canada. The first post summarized the loss of this supply ship in the High Arctic in Aug. 1853, while provisioning search expeditions looking for the Franklin Expedition. The second post described the original 1980s discovery and exploration of the wreck. A fourth post explores the wreck based on Parks Canada’s 2014 visit.

330” scale feet–or 28 inches–under snow and ice, lies the Breadalbane model, represented at her 1980 moment of discovery. Credit: http://www.warsearcher.com

Following on from our work on an HMS Terror diorama during 2022, we had the idea to build Breadalbane after seeing the state of preservation and the incredible marine life populating this remote spot, south of Beechey Island, Nunavut. Photos and video from the original 1983 expedition and the 2014 check-up (the 1984 National Film Board documentary and the contemporary Canadian Broadcasting Corporation 2014 coverage and clips) show a riot of colour in the dark, freezing waters off Beechey.

In addition to the binnacle cabinet and ship’s wheel, a site of importance to the 1980s explorations, the transom has been represented with three closed scuttles, which both C.A. Inglefield’s and another contemporary illustration of the sinking show. Credit:www.warsearcher.com
Draft marks are present climbing up the stern post, with the fallen rudder and lower mizzen mast underneath. The stern post is perched a few feet off the hard bottom. Credit: http://www.warsearcher.com.
The main cargo hatch, mainmast, pumps, companionway leading down to the aft portion of the lower deck, the ship’s capstan, and the open forward face of the deckhouse. The model also has detailed interior areas of both the lower deck and main hold, which may be explored in a future post. Credit: http://www.warsearcher.com

The Breadalbane was a casualty of Beechey Island’s local conditions, like the three Franklin crewmembers (and one HMS Investigator member) buried nearby, so we gave the diorama a nameplate inspired by the original 1840s-1850s appearance of the Beechey gravestones: Black board with white lettering.

The model’s bows, showing the placement of the port Bower anchor, and the damaged bowsprit and head rails. The beginnings of the copper cladding are damaged at where the stem meets the keel. Credit: http://www.warsearcher.com

The diorama was originally conceived of as an engaging way of interpreting the information gathered about the wreck by Dr. Joe MacInnis’s 1980s team and by Parks Canada’s visits to the wreck site 2012-2014. We owe both teams a debt of gratitude for supplying us information, and would like to reiterate the acknowledgements from the first post. We are not done with Beechey, or rather Beechey is not nearly done with us. Spare this sunken, beautiful barque a thought today, and stay tuned!

The starboard side, showing the deckhouse, and the enormous and fatal hole in the ship’s bilges. At the very left corner of the diorama, we chose to represent Breadalbane’s female figurehead, resting on the seafloor. This feature appears to have been sheared off during the sinking, and has not been found. Credit:www.warsearcher.com

Breadalbane Part 2: Finding a Shipwreck under the Ice at Beechey

This second post will focus on the 1980s discovery and explorations of the incredibly intact wreck of Breadalbane off Beechey Island, Nunavut. The first post summarized the loss of this supply ship in the High Arctic in Aug. 1853, while resupplying search expeditions looking for the Franklin Expedition. The third post shows our construction of an archaeologically-based scale diorama of this National Historic Site of Canada. A fourth post explores the wreck based on Parks Canada’s 2014 visit.

The Breadalbane wreck diorama, built in 2023, represents the wreck at a scale depth of 330’ as it appeared before its 1980 discovery. This will be the subject of a future post. Credit:www.warsearcher.com

On August 17th, 1984, Anthropologist Owen Beattie, looking for evidence of what went so terribly wrong with the 1845 Franklin Expedition, exhumed the body of John Torrington, a stoker from HMS Terror who had been buried almost fourteen decades before at Beechey Island, in the Canadian Arctic. Torrington had been one of the first to perish, on New Year’s Day, 1846. He was buried at the site of the first winter encampment of HM Ships Erebus and Terror. When photos were released of his body, newly exhumed from a frozen coffin, the public was shocked, fascinated, and a little horrified. This early-Victorian sailor appeared to have barely decayed!

John Torrington’s grave marker. This is a replica placed here in 1993 when the original marker was moved to the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre. Credit: Gordon Leggett via wikimedia commons [cropped and edited]

The state of preservation should not have been so surprising: remains and relics of Arctic exploration located at Beechey just don’t seem to deteriorate as we would expect! A few years earlier the wreck of the supply ship Breadalbane had been discovered nearby. Like Torrington and the shipmates buried alongside him, Breadalbane was also “Frozen in Time.”1

Map of the Arctic portion of North America, with the state of surveying just before the Franklin Expedition set off. [cropped and annotated with rough location of Breadalbane sinking] HM Admiralty; J. & C. Walker, Public domain, Royal Museums Greenwich via Wikimedia Commons

In most other bodies of water on Earth, a 130-year old wooden shipwreck would be a pile of debris and ballast stones, with scattered cannon, decayed timbers and remnants of cargo, copper and rusted metal left to hint at its past size and shape. The naval shipworm (toredo navalis – a pernicious little species of clam) devastates wood, devouring wooden hulls, masts, and deck structures within a dozen or so years. In the High Arctic, as in the waters around Antarctica, and a few inland lakes and seas, the shipworm has no dominion, and wrecks remain as silent sentinels of past eras of trade, warfare, or exploration.

As the lost ships and vanished 129-man crew of the Franklin Expedition lived on in the popular memory, the related story of the ship that sank at Beechey in 1853 was completely forgotten. During the 1970s, Dr. Joe MacInnis, a Canadian who was pioneering new undersea medicine and diving technologies, began looking into Arctic shipwrecks, with the idea of a search that could also be a test bed for new undersea equipment. Using archival sources from the Scott Polar Research Institute, the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, and elsewhere, he eventually seized on the idea of a search for the Breadalbane. He had high hopes of locating the wreck based on the reasonably accurate statement about where the ship was lost south of Beechey Island. He led a multidisciplinary team, supported by Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers, starting in 1979. Weather and ice conditions limited the search to a few short weeks and the team was forced to wait to return to the waters off Beechey until August 1980. That year, they discovered a wreck in about 330’ of water, two kilometres south of the Island’s imposing cliffs.

Annotated Sentinel Playground image of the conditions around Beechey Island 165 years after the sinking, showing dangerous ice pans and floes south of Beechey. These conditions in mid-August both caused the original 1853 loss of Breadalbane, and made any summer search or exploration efforts on the wreck difficult.

While noting enormous iceberg scour trails snaking their way across the seafloor of the Barrow Strait, a clear image of a wreck came across the sonar print-out. The images were interpreted by expert sonar technician Garry Kozak on the bridge of the Canadian icebreaker CCGS Sir John A. McDonald. Surprisingly, the scans clearly showed two masts pointing towards the surface. They had located a large sailing ship! A sonar image, though, does not constitute a confirmed shipwreck identification. For that, the team needed “eyes on the prize.” That came soon after, as the team were able to descend a camera on a line to the wreck, which filmed some portion of the ship’s gunwales or deck.

CCGS Pierre Radisson (at right) refuels HMCS Moncton during the Sep. 2015 Operation QIMMIQ in Nunavut, related to the search for HMS Terror. Pierre Radisson was involved, early in her career, in the Breadalbane exploration. Credit: Department of National Defence (Corporal Felicia Ogunniya) SW2015-0226-1306

After delays and an unfavourable season, the team returned in September 1982 with a Benthos Remote Piloted Vehicle (RPV). This advanced robotic vehicle had been developed by Chris Nicholson, who was present to skillfully pilot it (Nicholson would be involved in many other robotic explorations, including on RMS Titanic and the US warships Hamilton and Scourge in Lake Ontario). The RPV captured a rich visual record that helped survey the wreck’s condition-it was shockingly intact! During April 1983 they were back over Breadalbane with more funding and an incredibly audacious plan that MacInnis had put together: To establish a camp on the ice over the wreck using flown-in supplies; to continue to survey the Breadalbane with RPVs; and to tractor in equipment to enable the team to perform crewed-dives to inspect the wreck and surroundings. The frigid depths the wreck lay at were beyond the limit of safe scuba diving or surface-supplied diving. The team had been planning for this. They would operate the WASP suit, a newly developed atmospheric diving suit that was safe to operate beyond Breadalbane’s depth. It was basically a heavy diving-suit-like one-person submersible, with claw-like hands emerging from articulated arms, a dome to look through, and a single lower section.2 The WASP pilots propelled themselves by marine thrusters.

The cover of the July 1983 edition of National Geographic showed the recovery of a WASP-suited pilot who had been exploring the wreck. The National Geographic photographer most involved in shooting some incredible imagery was Emory Kristof, longtime underwater photographer.

This might all seem standard procedure in the third decade of the 21st Century. Similar dives have now been performed on other Franklin Expedition-associated sites, and an ice camp was also an option in the recent find of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s exploration ship Endurance under the Weddell Sea, Antarctica; however, in 1983 this was pushing the limits of technology. Looking back at the concurrent RPV filming and diving, and the as-it-happens filming of a National Film Board documentary, directed by Bill Mason, the logistical and technological efforts in an environment of -20*C, and the “cowboy” atmosphere at the ice camp…the whole effort was bonkers!3 Somehow, the program stayed on track, and things came together just when they had to. The dives were an incredible success. WASP pilots Phil Nuytten (a Canadian engineer heavily involved in the design of the suits) and Doug Osborne have been the only humans to ever visit the site. Nuytten was quoted as saying ”It looked like you could sail it away, if you could somehow make the water vanish, you could probably repair it in a couple of weeks and sail it back to England. It looked great.”4

As Dr. MacInnis relates in his book on the topic, The Search for the Breadalbane, news of the 1980 Breadalbane discovery was eclipsed by false reports of the discovery of RMS Titanic, which would not actually be located until five years later (iconic bow section view). Courtesy of NOAA/Institute for Exploration/University of Rhode Island (NOAA/IFE/URI)., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Compared to the barrenness of Beechey’s landscapes, Breadalbane was found to be host to thriving communities of marine life. Anemones and bright white basket stars blended with vibrant pink, orange and red coral growths on the upper hull and topsides. Everywhere there was silt, heaps of growth, and decades of deposited phytoplankton and algae, which floated down on the wreck like green snow. Below this abundance, her lower hull was found to be clad in a minty-green cloak of beautifully-preserved copper sheathing.

Copper roof sheets originally removed from the roof of the Canadian Parliament Buildings in Ottawa, now a wall in the lobby of the Canadian War Museum. These approximate the sizes and shades of verdigris on the Breadalbane’s hull. (Author’s photo)

A brief summary of the archaeological discoveries and major features of the wreck would highlight the exceptionally large and early example of a deckhouse. It survived mostly intact on the ship’s quarterdeck, and was packed with artifacts such as tables, chairs, and a ship’s stove. Elsewhere, deck furniture included the large windlass forward and the capstan aft. Open hatches provided glimpses of the chaotic damage on the lower deck. The ship’s wheel and a binnacle cabinet were located with navigating instruments, on the small after deck.

Site plan of Breadalbane as discovered in the early 1980s, drawn in 2023 relying on 1980s and 2012-2014 ROV and dive footage, sonar scans, artistic reconstructions, and other sources. Credit: http://www.warsearcher.com, who retain copyright

The lower hull was marked by a massive extent of ice damage, particularly running along the starboard bilge. This marred otherwise pristine copper sheathing. A well-preserved bower anchor of the stockless variety was discovered on the seafloor, on the Portside of the stem, with a heavy hawser still leading up to a hawsehole. The rudder was located on the seabed just aft of the sternpost, while the fallen mizzen mast stretched from it off to port. White draft marking climbed up the sternpost (these would have originally helped load, ballast, or trim the ship, filling it to a safe, even, waterline level). Debris and spars stretched along the port side on the seabed, with a railing, originally on the deckhouse roof, running like an angled ladder from the seabed to the ship’s sides. The bowsprit was shattered, the figurehead could not be discerned through the growth, and the ship’s bell (a focal point of any shipwreck) was not found.

A 1987 issued Canada Post 36 cent stamp commemorating the Breadalbane find, which shows the wheel with colourful marine growth. Credit: Credit: Library and Archives Canada; Copyright: Canada Post Corporation

During the 1983 RPV and WASP operations, a small number of artifacts, and notably the ship’s wheel, were brought to the surface. Parks Canada underwater archaeologist Robert Grenier did not support the recovery of items from the site – a process that requires additional permits and permissions. Once the objects were at the surface, he worked diligently to safeguard the preservation of these wooden artifacts and prepare them for transportation.

Forty years later, the wheel as preserved at Parks Canada’s Ottawa facility, May 2023. Credit: Russell Potter, Visions of the North blog: https://visionsnorth.blogspot.com/2023/04/a-visit-with-parks-canada-part-2-of-3.html?m=1

After the recovery, the team worked quickly to wrap up the season, tearing down the ice camp. The fabulously expensive equipment was shipped south. Joe gave interviews and presentations and wrote his book, The Search for the Breadalbane, Bill Mason produced the NFB documentary Land that Devours Ships, the National Geographic photo crew moved to other assignments, Chris Nicholson continued to design and operate improved robotic systems, and Garry Kozak was involved in new sonar searches for other famous shipwrecks. Robert Grenier returned south to continue the massive archaeological excavations at Red Bay, Labrador. When the last plane lifted off the ice-strip in the shadows of Beechey Island’s imposing cliffs, Breadalbane was again left as a time capsule waiting under the ice.

  1. John Geiger and Owen Beattie’s 1987 book Frozen in Time: The Fate of the Franklin Expedition laid out a hypothesis that lead poisoning had contributed to the destruction of the Franklin Expedition, which had originated out of the 1984 exhumation of Torrington, and John Hartnell and William Braine the next year. The grave of sailor Thomas Morgan, of HMS Investigator, located beside the three Franklin graves, has not be excavated. The author, as a young boy, first saw the Torrington image in Owen Beattie and John Geiger’s 1991 young readers book Buried in Ice: The Mystery of a Lost Arctic Expedition, and has been trying for thirty-two years now to unsee it. ↩︎
  2. Readers may recall a different type of atmospheric diving suit, the JIM suit, making an appearance in the 1981 James Bond film For Your Eyes Only. ↩︎
  3. The NFB film “Land that Devours Ships” (1983) is an incredible visual record of these expeditions to the Breadalbane, that can be fully viewed on the NFB website. The author would like to acknowledge the continued assistance of Jonathan Moore, Parks Canada, whose expertise has substantially complemented the visual record of the 198os expeditions. ↩︎
  4. “Divers find old ship intact in the Arctic,” New York Times 27 May 1983 A12. ↩︎

Breadalbane Part 1: Wrecked near the Top of the World

This first post will recount the 1853 loss of the supply ship Breadalbane in the High Arctic near Beechey Island, present-day Nunavut, Canada, while resupplying search expeditions looking for the Sir John Franklin Expedition. Upcoming posts will focus on the 1980s discovery and exploration of the incredibly intact wreck, the 2012-2014 survey work by the Canadian Government, and our construction of an archaeologically-based scale diorama to help interpret Breadalbane – a National Historic Site of Canada.

One-hundred-and-seventy years ago, the Breadalbane supply ship was proceeding North to a rendezvous in Greenland. This merchant ship had been built on the Clyde River, Scotland, in 1843. Ten years later, the crew succeeded in an important mission, but Breadalbane would not return from her Arctic service. Her shipwreck was located 130 years later by Dr. Joseph B. MacInnis and his colleagues. Currently, she is the most northerly identified Canadian Arctic wreck, and one of the most northerly in the World.1 She remains one of the most intact ships from the great era of polar exploration. Breadalbane’s wreck is a vibrant oasis of marine life in a brutally harsh environment.

Of all our attempts to locate imagery and plans of Breadalbane, we have settled on this National Maritime Museum model of an 1830s merchant ship as best representing Breadalbane as she appeared before Admiralty modifications for Arctic service. Even the paint scheme appears similar to that found on the wreck. Credit: Royal Museums Greenwich SLR0726

Breadalbane was built by the firm of Hedderwick and Rankin in 1842-1843 near Glasgow, and was typical of hundreds of other merchant ships. She was roughly 125 feet from bow to stern (according to the Lloyd’s of London survey report for 1843, she was 117.8 feet, which could be a stem-to-sternpost dimension), and displaced about 430 tons, her moulded breadth was about 24 ‘, suggesting her overall width was greater. She was sturdily built, of a bewildering variety of woods, from all over the British Empire and beyond: African and American Oak, Quebec Rock Elm, Red and Yellow pine. Well-squared English and Welsh oak predominated. Unlike the later clipper ships, she was designed for economical transportation of goods, not speedy passages. Her bows were bluff, her proportions were generous (to incorporate capacious cargo holds) and her lines were simple. She was rigged as a barque–that is to say square sails on the fore and mainmast and a simpler fore-and-aft rigged mizzen mast near the stern. Compared to a fully-rigged ship, this simplified rig had only a small impact on the ship’s performance before the wind, while requiring less crew members.

The Charles W. Morgan whaling ship, a museum ship at Mystic CT, barque-rigged and the most similar surviving vessel to Breadalbane. She was built two years earlier, and is slightly smaller, with the specialized features of a whaler-tryworks stoves for melting down blubber and davits for more whale-catching boats. Credit: Ken Mist, CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Breadalbane’s career thus far had involved routine voyages to transport goods to and from British India. She had been meticulously maintained. Upon an 1848 return from one such voyage, she had to be set right after a minor accident in Calcutta. She was repaired with teak sections and classed again at the highest level of Lloyd’s of London assessment, A1 for ten years, with the surveyor writing ” The barque is in good condition and eligible for the safe conveyance of dry and perishable cargos to and from all parts of the World.”2

Taken up for Admiralty service in March 1853 and given a refit and modifications for Arctic service (which we will describe in a future post), Breadalbane departed from the Thames Estuary 19 May 1853, fully loaded with provisions for the search expeditions, commanded by Captain Edward Belcher, which were then scouring the Arctic for traces of the Franklin Expedition and HM Ships Erebus and Terror. It was eight years to the day since Franklin’s ships had started off on their own fateful passage. Breadalbane arrived off Disko Island, Greenland, 8 July. After meeting up with her powerful consort, HMS Phoenix, a steamship, she proceeded along the western coast of Greenland and on up the Davis Strait. Breadalbane was not updated with steam engines and screw propellers like Erebus and Terror had been in 1845. Instead, she was towed through adverse winds and dangerous ice by Phoenix.

Breadalbane under tow off Disko, Greenland. This is the only representation we have ever seen that shows both the figurehead and the deckhouse at the base of the mizzen. Detail of E.A. Inglefield’s view of HMS Phoenix towing the ship, with HMS Diligence store ship aft. Credit Library and Archives Canada mikan 2837866.

Phoenix’s Captain, Edward A. Inglefield, commanded the resupply effort. He also kept a visual record, in the form of well-executed sketches of the major events of the 1853 passage. Despite worsening ice conditions, the ships continued to make progress with Phoenix in the lead, employing her steam power and reinforced bows in the novel role of icebreaking, cutting a path for Breadalbane while simultaneously towing her.

Inglefield took a photographic record of a later resupply mission, in mid-1854, which saw HMS Phoenix (right) again leading a storeship, HMS Diligence, to resupply the Belcher expedition (1852-1854) looking for Franklin. They were photographed at Godhavn, (Qeqertarsuaq) Disko Island, Greenland. Diligence was a similar barque to Breadalbane, of earlier vintage. It appears that Diligence had been upgraded with partially reinforced ice channels under the fore, main and mizzen chains. Credit: Captain Edward Augustus Inglefield, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The ships arrived near Beechey Island off the southwest coast of Devon Island, 8 August. Beechey already had a special significance, as the spot where the Franklin crews had spent their first winter of 1845-46, onboard their frozen-in ships. It was now being used as a staging base for the Belcher expedition ships, with HMS North Star depot ship victualling the widely-dispersed search ships. For the isolated Royal Navy crews confined to Beechey for many months, Breadalbane and Phoenix’s arrival was a joyous time. News of home, new faces, and new supplies boosted spirits. Breadalbane’s goods were sustaining the largest of the Franklin searches.

Beechey is an island of lost explorers, graves, monuments, shipwrecks, and house wrecks made from shipwrecks. These are the ruins of Northumberland House, constructed in 1852-53 under the direction of HMS North Star‘s Captain, Cmdr. W.J.S. Pullen. It was provisioned with supplies in case Franklin’s crews or others returned. The mast of a whaling ship (still standing in the 1980s), whose timbers also wound up incorporated into the house, can just be seen on the beach, with a view out to Cape Riley, Devon Island, across Erebus and Terror Bay. Credit: Ansgar Walk, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Navigating the ice-chocked waters off Beechey proved to be challenging, so the next day the ship manoeuvred across Erebus and Terror Bay and in close to the bluffs at Cape Riley on Devon Island. Crew members begun shifting coal ashore. Ice remained a hazard, but the transport worked back inshore to discharge more cargo on 16 August.

Breadalbane’s crew shifting supplies ashore at Cape Riley, Devon Island, in company with HMS Phoenix (at right). (Detail of) Illustrated London News 22 Oct. 1853. Credit: Frederick James Smyth, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Unlike the events leading to final abandonment of Erebus and Terror, the details of Breadalbane’s loss, on 21 August 1853, are well-established. Descriptions by both Inglefield, and Breadalbane’s Second Master, William Fawckner, help chronicle the ship’s end. When most supplies had been unloaded, drifting ice began to descend on the area. The decision was taken to again evacuate the inshore area on the 20th. Sledging trips continued to remove more supplies to North Star. By midnight, Phoenix had worked her way to a position about a half-mile South of Beechey Island. Both ships were moored to a large flow. The ice crowded in, and the crew worked to save boats and to help Phoenix, which was thought to be in more imminent peril.

This remarkable work came up for auction a few years ago. It seems unlikely it was actually sketched by Inglefield, as it contrasts quite strikingly with his other depiction of the sinking. Here Breadalbane is shown heaved up on the ice, with HMS Phoenix nearby. This depiction has some unique features: A more ornate stern with three lights and false galleries (not depicted anywhere else), and lines which seem to indicate the bow sheathing.

The worst of the ice passed aft of Phoenix, smashed the boats, and brutalized Breadalbane, which would have been sitting high in the water, in ballast trim. The ice first pinched the ship, sending tremors throughout, before crashing straight through the lower hull. This opened an enormous gash along the starboard side at the same time as it ground a smaller rent in the port bows. Interior spaces, particularly around the ship’s bows, were devastated, with decks and partitions snapping like matchsticks.

The moment when Breadalbane was crushed by ice, 21 Aug. 1853, by EA Inglefield, who witnessed the events from his command, Phoenix, ahead of Breadalbane. Close visual inspection of the transom seems to indicate that there is indeed a third sealed scuttle or light across the stern, matching a detail of the auction house sketch. Evidence does suggest that Breadalbane had two enormous “2”s painted on each side, to mark her role as a supply ship. Nothing of these markings has been located on the wreck. Credit: Edward Augustus Inglefield, Library and Archives Canada [detail of] mikan 2837463

Inglefield arrived on scene and ordered Fawckner to assess the damage, as the ship settled lower by the bows. A cursory glance down the hatches into the main hold showed him that the ship was doomed. The 21-member crew worked to save a few possessions as the ice momentarily let up. Moments after all crew members had escaped over the ice, the ship plunged straight down with a rapidity that shocked all who witnessed the sorry end of Breadalbane.3 The process may have looked a bit like a sped-up version of Frank Hurley’s 1915 footage of Shackleton’s Endurance sinking in the Weddell Sea, Antarctica.

A World away, the most Southerly shipwreck, Sir Ernest Shackleton’s barquentine RRS Endurance, being gradually crushed by ice during the 1915 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Endurance was located deep under the Weddell Sea in 2022. Credit: Frank Hurley via wikimedia commons.

The shipwrecked crew joined some of the crew of HMS Investigator (one of the search ships that had been beset and had been abandoned at Mercy Bay in April) and were soon on their way back to England on Phoenix. Breadalbane had served the Admiralty’s purpose. The ships of Britain’s far flung merchant marine were routinely lost in seas all over the World, and Breadalbane’s story seemed set to fade into obscurity, amidst the greater drama of the continued disappearance of the Franklin expedition, and the loss of many of the search ships.

A teaser for a future post. Here the model of Breadalbane’s wreck, which we will extensively interpret, is compared to satellite imagery of the Charles W. Morgan…BECAUSE WE CAN!

I would like to acknowledge the assistance and expertise of Jonathan Moore, Underwater Archaeology Team, Parks Canada, and Dr. Joe MacInnis, original team lead of the late 1970s and early 80s efforts to locate and explore Breadalbane.

  1. Jonathan Dore (Facebook group Remembering the Franklin Expedition) and David Mearns (FB group Sir E.H. Shackleton Appreciation Society) have supplied information about the remains of Benjamin Leigh Smith’s exploration ship Eira, in Franz Joseph Land, 6 degrees of latitude higher North. Eira was lost 18 years to the day after Breadalbane, 21 Aug. 1881. Breadalbane was the World’s most northerly located wreck from her discovery by Dr. Joe MacInnis in 1980 until 2018, when substantial evidence was recovered from the Eira wrecksite. Eira’s archaeological assessment is ongoing. ↩︎
  2. The Lloyd’s of London survey reports for Breadalbane from 1843,1844,1849,1853 are a valuable resource for describing her construction, repairs, and substantial modification in early 1853 for Northern service. ↩︎
  3. A detailed description of the sinking is provided by Fawckner, extensively excerpted in Joe MacInnis’s 1983 book: The Search for the Breadalbane. Many of the details of Breadalbane’s journey are taken from this source. I would like to thank Fabiënne Tetteroo for providing me with a copy of the Illustrated London News of 22 Oct. 1853 that excerpted Fawckner’s report. ↩︎