tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38737569409551634692024-03-18T18:05:25.867-07:00VISIONS OF THE NORTHThe Terrors of the Frozen Zone, Past and PresentRussell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.comBlogger373125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-19110811776594754702024-02-04T14:07:00.000-08:002024-02-06T12:16:06.500-08:00The Mystery of Catherine Tozer<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuG6oULI_BPz0g6ReV2R2jIJeefR2UV9ONgINDk9jz59SJDr47DTQOTxKA7F13N6bu4-MlB6lKtO_uaZVVBTm6S72Lquh7fO5MRwur_BwmWxr01W9tvznvPmadNi9kCef4cDb_12KQl2YH-flTegK45MAmBG0YKSZrnF1WBZWM4ekDrgnvKx3fXZzHi0Ow/s834/Charley%20Wilson.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="834" data-original-width="645" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuG6oULI_BPz0g6ReV2R2jIJeefR2UV9ONgINDk9jz59SJDr47DTQOTxKA7F13N6bu4-MlB6lKtO_uaZVVBTm6S72Lquh7fO5MRwur_BwmWxr01W9tvznvPmadNi9kCef4cDb_12KQl2YH-flTegK45MAmBG0YKSZrnF1WBZWM4ekDrgnvKx3fXZzHi0Ow/s320/Charley%20Wilson.JPG" width="247" /></a></div>The essential details of the life of Solomon Tozer, a sergeant in the Royal Marines assigned to HMS <i>Terror</i>, are well-known, and have been documented in Ralph Lloyd-Jones's article "The Royal Marines on Franklin's Last Arctic Expedition" (<i>Polar Recor</i>d 40 (215) (2004). He was born in Axbridge, near Cheddar, in 1815 or possibly 1817, and may have been a Nonconformist (a religious term from the day, signifying those who did not agree with the 29 articles of the established Church of England). <div><br /></div><div>However, what is far less well-known is that he may have had a sister, Catherine, who was a nonconformist in a much more modern sense of the word. According to the 1913 press article, she'd worked as a schoolmistress, but suffered so much abuse from her husband that she left him (it should be borne in mind that divorce was essentially impossible at this period in time), and chose to adopt male attire for the rest of her life, going by the name of "Charley Wilson" and finding employment as a painter. Further details about her are scarce -- the two newspaper items in this post contain almost all of what is known, and my efforts to contact the family descendant who first drew my attention to her story have not (so far) met with success, but apparently the family genealogy is -- by that account -- fairly certain.<div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHARvRUinE6TTZbyfMRTj66xKH0lRzZLrdf_PSa7qCfiRPGDuMWiqReJJoeNbUctrYQFGrq4LuVaNc4OGKmye6D1Ayk7Lt0Yx-Q8MeHQXDTx1YWMwrfBh8Hq0TjwyyrpjGuW3yoeYGohb3AiOzBUlV31MgFjUIUNn4eNvids_xF8pUNm3H9xse6-WTz7mk/s1192/Screenshot%202023-08-16%20at%209.57.29%20AM.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1192" data-original-width="868" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHARvRUinE6TTZbyfMRTj66xKH0lRzZLrdf_PSa7qCfiRPGDuMWiqReJJoeNbUctrYQFGrq4LuVaNc4OGKmye6D1Ayk7Lt0Yx-Q8MeHQXDTx1YWMwrfBh8Hq0TjwyyrpjGuW3yoeYGohb3AiOzBUlV31MgFjUIUNn4eNvids_xF8pUNm3H9xse6-WTz7mk/w291-h400/Screenshot%202023-08-16%20at%209.57.29%20AM.png" width="291" /></a></div><p></p><p></p>(The few other items about her online are often accompanied by a photograph said to be hers -- but in fact the image is a glass plate photograph of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Høeg" target="_blank">Marie Høeg</a> (1866-1949), a Norwegian photographer and suffragist who had taken private photographs of herself wearing a theatrically fake <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/preusmuseum/32796501882" target="_blank">mustache</a>). </div><div><br /></div><div>The Catherine Tozer known in these newspaper columns seems to have been born in 1837, which would make her twenty years younger than her brother, quite a stretch but not an impossibility. By this earlier account, she first came to public attention after a scandalous affair -- cir<i>c</i>umstances rather different from those described in the<i> Cheltenham Chronicle</i> years later. The details are in this item from the <i>Bury Times </i>of September 8, 1860 (the dates given here are inconsistent by two years with those of the other article). <p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguIYcMXPJgO8_yi8wVTdS2YpdIoy4MCg7ya6b5V5pzUTJtT-a7zSRvEDbdTUxV2VWcCRusmF09DbN9r6J_fb4tQFN2DQF5NYr1M9JrEwCtrEaUQ7Y-1E2dsSpmh8LYewFpTLBS1aE-K9HqOoWXzPLi9TU9P1iUG8h2TV8ZQVXEqSdNgyRcmzuc6K_0uE-D/s1183/courtship.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1183" data-original-width="779" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguIYcMXPJgO8_yi8wVTdS2YpdIoy4MCg7ya6b5V5pzUTJtT-a7zSRvEDbdTUxV2VWcCRusmF09DbN9r6J_fb4tQFN2DQF5NYr1M9JrEwCtrEaUQ7Y-1E2dsSpmh8LYewFpTLBS1aE-K9HqOoWXzPLi9TU9P1iUG8h2TV8ZQVXEqSdNgyRcmzuc6K_0uE-D/w211-h320/courtship.png" width="211" /></a></div>One of the last records I could find was a notice from the <i>Gloucestershire Echo </i>of 15 October 1897 noting that she will be able to leave a workhouse in West Ham thanks to the support of the Painters' Union and an offer of employment in "some light business." If I have her correct date of birth, she would have been sixty years old at that time. <p></p><p>More recently, a lengthy research article on the Tozer family has come to light, compiled by a user known as @dustygnome; a link to this article may be found via <a href="https://www.tumblr.com/dustygnome/703768880582148096/the-latest-terror-camp-finally-inspired-me-to-get?fbclid=IwAR3vuaSHR-wk62YY1kY7zhVSGpT_NZpHXGkpkirkQmEMva6mhUYKNlSAPWk" target="_blank">Tumblr</a>. There's a tremendous amount of valuable information in this article, which covers several generations of the Tozer family. I've also located a couple of additional resources in more specialized archives, including this <a href="https://zagria.blogspot.com/2019/04/two-lives-ended-in-workhouse-1889-1899.html" target="_blank">trans history page</a> which links to a newspaper article that contains an actual <a href="https://www.digitaltransgenderarchive.net/downloads/1z40kt05n" target="_blank">interview with Charley Wilson</a> conducted shortly before his death. From this site, it's also fascinating to learn that Wilson was employed painting ships for the Peninsular & Oriental shipping company, including the <i>Rome</i>, the <i>Victoria</i>, the <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Oceana_(1887)" target="_blank">Oceania</a></i>, and the <i>Arcadia</i>. P&O, as it was known, continued in business until 2006, when it was sold to DP World; a reconstituted part of the company operates P&O Ferries, infamous for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%26O_dismissal_controversy" target="_blank">sacking its entire staff</a> in 2022. Charley Wilson is said to have died in 1911; I have so far been unable to locate a burial site.</p></div></div>Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-43890905866323613112024-01-24T17:08:00.000-08:002024-01-25T09:47:31.382-08:00Parks Canada 2023 finds<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwBGqcUC5uN6_lqr3STf2z1R0V66qWICAXgyE0x00rKFk0zYhMfMym2bjDxAkzIcxiPs_7JV9RIW1vumw8fx2FNhoWoju3YO01DS10gR35raghNL3r3ArsQJ1bjxKZdTRu8dl8a3UT0MyTuedqQAlRgE2TtvC6nEHJR2bjgcy_YFtnyVyySm_oiXaHRSNb/s1122/Parks_Canada_Parks_Canada_s_underwater_archaeologists_complete_s.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="743" data-original-width="1122" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwBGqcUC5uN6_lqr3STf2z1R0V66qWICAXgyE0x00rKFk0zYhMfMym2bjDxAkzIcxiPs_7JV9RIW1vumw8fx2FNhoWoju3YO01DS10gR35raghNL3r3ArsQJ1bjxKZdTRu8dl8a3UT0MyTuedqQAlRgE2TtvC6nEHJR2bjgcy_YFtnyVyySm_oiXaHRSNb/w400-h265/Parks_Canada_Parks_Canada_s_underwater_archaeologists_complete_s.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Marc-André Bernier examines the seaman's chest</i></td></tr></tbody></table>The news is in: Parks Canada has just made its first official <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/parks-canada/news/2024/01/parks-canadas-underwater-archaeologists-complete-seasonal-research-at-wrecks-of-hms-erebus-and-hms-terror-national-historic-site.html" target="_blank">release</a> of results from the 2023 dive season. It was a relatively short one -- just twelve days -- but the objects recovered from HMS Erebus are remarkable both for their number -- said to be in the hundreds -- and for the light that those so far publicly identified cast upon the lives of those aboard Franklin's flagship.<p></p><div>It's a slow and patient process, as divers have to ensure that they disturb the context of the objects they recover as little as possible, knowing full well that this means that there will always be items that must wait until the next dive season. The Underwater Archaeology Team (UAT) has been moving slowly through the accessible spaces of Erebus, continuing their work on the captain's steward's storage area just forward of Franklin's Great Cabin, and looking into one of the officer's rooms -- likely that of lieutenant H.T.D. Le Vesconte. At the same time, with an eye to learning more about the onboard lives of regular sailors, a seaman's chest in the fo'c'sle -- forward of the wardroom but astern of the sick bay -- was investigated. The finds in each of these areas have already transformed our understanding of the lives of Franklin's men, even as we must be cautious -- since such a small portion of all the artifacts on board has yet been recovered -- of the ways in which finds yet to be found may re-shape the story.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicCfQ70fbaN-gmNq3QTUiGQD4x6YAiIXdziCHSQ4KQBZ1cXRVY3ZbF2AcwC_cO8wAj1nX2hAXjk9WMez59yPtdEMQZ2wNNNbTOQj7VKabd7jBjgcRj7R0eJETE6RXA06c25D8A_ctEp8BnGqlRBqTwsZe4_u8_EG9Yrf1OpHk65qoz2a6DEoE4QlG2gRhj/s1544/bottle.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1544" data-original-width="1382" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicCfQ70fbaN-gmNq3QTUiGQD4x6YAiIXdziCHSQ4KQBZ1cXRVY3ZbF2AcwC_cO8wAj1nX2hAXjk9WMez59yPtdEMQZ2wNNNbTOQj7VKabd7jBjgcRj7R0eJETE6RXA06c25D8A_ctEp8BnGqlRBqTwsZe4_u8_EG9Yrf1OpHk65qoz2a6DEoE4QlG2gRhj/w358-h400/bottle.png" width="358" /></a></div>Beginning with the captain's steward -- Edmund Hoar -- new items have been found in what was likely a storage area of which he was in charge. Notable among these is a bottle, embossed with the "broad arrow" signifying government property, as well as a letter "K." Dubbed the "K bottle" (after a compressed-air bottle in quite common use among divers), it may contain some sort of medicine; <a href="http://www.coffinisland.ca/medicine.htm#VIALS:" target="_blank">similar bottles with different letters</a> have been recovered from marine sites elsewhere in Canada. The location seems to have been well-contained, which suggests that perhaps Hoar, or the Captain he served, had some need of it. Further along the companionway, a room believed to be likely that of H.D.T. Le Vesconte disclosed an unexpected find: the reel of a fishing rod (found with other parts of a fishing kit), which quite alters one's imagined view of Le Vesconte or any Franklin officer if the room were theirs. Once, we knew them only in their dress uniforms; now we must imagine at least one of them with rod and reel, which conjures up quite a different image.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzrjafF9yHOdxJYh5izdmph1nX0SjyioRa_T_OHBLunb4KE_CXhXu46XDByY_c9v6cAzZIbt065pMp86wfVsCPuJlBd-2nhKN2weSudWRS1d1E0L5WNNj4TJveftVyZ7eDbrXau7y5nWBqVy0csKJZpkQxTSLnkIZC5N7BO-B1ICdSaY6feNyqE9N2A-QQ/s1200/moulinet-reel-1200x800.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzrjafF9yHOdxJYh5izdmph1nX0SjyioRa_T_OHBLunb4KE_CXhXu46XDByY_c9v6cAzZIbt065pMp86wfVsCPuJlBd-2nhKN2weSudWRS1d1E0L5WNNj4TJveftVyZ7eDbrXau7y5nWBqVy0csKJZpkQxTSLnkIZC5N7BO-B1ICdSaY6feNyqE9N2A-QQ/s320/moulinet-reel-1200x800.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>But it's the seaman's chest in the fo'c'sle that piques the imagination most -- among the objects within appear to have been some pistols, one of which has been recovered to the surface and will be undergoing conservation. Why would side-arms have been kept in such a chest? Were they stored there under lock and key in case of need, or perhaps cached for safety when the ship was deserted? It's worth noting that the Royal Marines would have shared this area with the regular sailors, and yet such pistols were not necessarily standard equipment (though Nelson's navy had its <a href="https://www.militaryheritage.com/pistol1.htm" target="_blank">sea-service pistols</a>). One thinks also of the long rifles hanging from the beam in Terror's great cabin -- was the attitude toward firearms more relaxed while on Arctic service? More context is certainly needed to answer such questions; it may perhaps emerge in future dive seasons, when the chest is further excavated.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnkcXNj8tHsYx34bff-_hJX5-mhqhHlD4IH2y870cU3JIeOxz8YVHDzdOoDV55QrFz-XyEMxoiEdv1LKwgeGuMFa95JxcDK8oTeKnq9eYXQqH1rWF7VGFo4MaFi_id22dDvTSKY4-nFrYTKZYvCC-esNiQNXOTqDL_t2CLlJXnFiPav16V5-dKMfWX5AGj/s2412/bowl.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1460" data-original-width="2412" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnkcXNj8tHsYx34bff-_hJX5-mhqhHlD4IH2y870cU3JIeOxz8YVHDzdOoDV55QrFz-XyEMxoiEdv1LKwgeGuMFa95JxcDK8oTeKnq9eYXQqH1rWF7VGFo4MaFi_id22dDvTSKY4-nFrYTKZYvCC-esNiQNXOTqDL_t2CLlJXnFiPav16V5-dKMfWX5AGj/w320-h194/bowl.png" width="320" /></a></div>It's the suggestive and enigmatic quality of these objects that makes them so special. My personal favorite is a stoneware bowl, also found in the chest; unlike the fancy flo-blue and transferware from the officers' mess, the regular sailors would surely have made do with humbler vessels, and this is one. It's a reminder that, both in written records and in artifacts, the daily life of most of the men aboard Franklin's ships has only just now begun to be accounted for.</div>Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-62137147213902899332023-12-25T03:00:00.000-08:002023-12-25T07:51:26.568-08:00Repost: Christmas in the Frozen Regions<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIYs8dWXRm9tTAcEOe1w_Ato_FwtGI8w7FiQj39Iqa4xvmj5orqZZflmCkZt2dW-UaPlJZpfZrkA_nQgStjlp_5c2UElhOOjvrEbJoLQEHJCOlf4HVmARKrRerWZPcaidq-2DMsiZqwjMY/s1600/wintr_harbor_parry,jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIYs8dWXRm9tTAcEOe1w_Ato_FwtGI8w7FiQj39Iqa4xvmj5orqZZflmCkZt2dW-UaPlJZpfZrkA_nQgStjlp_5c2UElhOOjvrEbJoLQEHJCOlf4HVmARKrRerWZPcaidq-2DMsiZqwjMY/s400/wintr_harbor_parry,jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">At this time of year, many of us are seeking a bit of Christmas past by revisiting Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol." There are innumerable local productions, dozens of film versions (I'm most fond of the one starring Alistair Sim, or else the <i>Muppet Christmas Carol</i>, which I actually feel is the best recent adaptation), and of course the book itself is always available. But most today are less acquainted with Dickens's other Christmas tales -- at one point he was writing a new one every year -- or with the many special Christmas numbers of his magazines <i>Household Words</i> and <i>All the Year 'Round</i>, which Dickens personally selected and edited with great care. It was, in fact, in 1850 -- the very first year of his first magazine, <i>Household Words -- </i>that Dickens, hoping to revive the fading hopes that Franklin and his men might yet live, selected a piece describing an Antarctic Christmas aboard the "Erebus" and "Terror" -- the very ships that Franklin had taken on his expedition a few years later. Making this connection was important enough that Dickens wrote a fresh introduction to the article, as well as a brief coda, himself, and his words are animated with all his usual spirit:</span></b><br />
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<b><i>"THINK</i></b><i> of Christmas in the tremendous wastes of ice and snow, that lie in the remotest regions of the earth ! Christmas, in the interminable white desert of the Polar sea ! Yet it has been kept in those awful solitudes, cheerfully, by Englishmen. Where crashing mountains of ice, heaped up together, have made a chaos round their ships, which in a moment might have ground them to dust; where hair has frozen on the face; where blankets have stiffened upon the bodies of men lying asleep, closely housed by huge fires, and plasters have turned to ice upon the wounds of others accidentally hurt; where the ships have been undistinguishable from the environing ice, and have resembled themselves far less than the surrounding masses have resembled monstrous piles of architecture which could not possibly be there, or anywhere; where the winter animals and birds are white, as if they too were born of the desolate snow and frost; there Englishmen have read the prayers of Christmas Day, and have drunk to friends at home, and sung home songs."</i></blockquote>
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The account that follows is by Robert McCormick, who had recently served under James Clark Ross as surgeon and naturalist aboard HMS "Terror," and describes the first Christmas of their Antarctic voyage. McCormick seems to have been an excellent writer, and this account is all the more notable as it's his earliest publication; he found himself unable to write up the expected naturalist's report for the Ross expedition, and his own account of his career, <i><a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=yNCfAAAAMAAJ&dq=Voyages+of+Discovery+in+the+Antarctic+and+Arctic+Seas&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=hVVJYxDdal&sig=rV9gsp74UfRApC-bw0fOanue1v0&hl=en&ei=aMgzS6eBIJPYsgPhpfyIBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=&f=false">Voyages of Discovery in the Antarctic and Arctic Seas</a></i>, was not published until 1884. As Dickens hands the narrative off to McCormick, the mystery and anxiety then surrounding Franklin's name is directly evoked:</div>
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<i>"In 1819, Captain Parry and his brave companions did so ; and the officers having dined off a piece of fresh beef, nine months old, preserved by the intense climate, joined the men in acting plays, with the thermometer below zero, on the stage. In 1825, Captain Franklin's party kept Christmas Day in their hut with snap-dragon and a dance, among a merry party of Englishmen, Highlanders, Canadians, Esquimaux, Chipewyans, Dog- Ribs, Hare Indians, and Cree women and children. </i></blockquote>
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<i>In 1850, some commemoration of Christmas may perhaps take place in the Frozen Regions. Heaven grant it! It is not beyond hope ! and be held by the later crews of those same ships ; for they are the very same that have so long been missing, and that are painfully connected in the public mind with FRANKLIN’S name.</i>" </blockquote>
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You can read McCormick’s account in full <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=_TMFAAAAQAAJ&lpg=RA1-PA306&ots=ZS75zYr1Hp&dq=%22christmas%20in%20the%20frozen%20regions%22&pg=RA1-PA306#v=onepage&q=%22christmas%20in%20the%20frozen%20regions%22&f=false">here</a>. Of course, much of the resonance of his story is how it shows the explorers keeping the traditions of home, evoking an elaborate Victorian Christmas even in the most desolate regions of the world. On this occasion, the ship was redecorated as a "hotel," and the drinks were kept cold by being served atop an enormous block of solid ice. McCormack, oddly, says very little about the food, but other explorers were far more voluble; you can follow the links here to read of a feast of "Banks Land Reindeer" in "<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=qKRBAAAAIAAJ&dq=arctic%20christmas&lr=&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=1&as_miny_is=1800&as_maxm_is=1&as_maxy_is=1920&as_brr=1&pg=PA294#v=onepage&q=arctic%20christmas&f=fals">Christmas-Keeping in the Arctic Regions, 1850-51</a>," relish Elisha Kent Kane's<a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=lXErAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA445#v=onepage&q=&f=false"> Christmas on the Second Grinnell expedition</a>, at which mere "pork and beans" were disguised as all manner of delicacies by the men's scurvy-fed imaginations, or devour A.W. Greely's luxurious first <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=udOfAAAAMAAJ&dq=arctic%20christmas&lr=&as_drrb_is=b&as_minm_is=1&as_miny_is=1800&as_maxm_is=1&as_maxy_is=1920&as_brr=1&pg=PA175#v=onepage&q=arctic%20christmas&f=false">Christmas with the Lady Franklin Bay Expedition</a> at Fort Conger, which featured mock-turtle soup, salmon, tenderloin of musk-ox, plum pudding with wine sauce, dates, figs, cherries, egg-nog, and an extra ration of rum -- a sad contrast with the meals of the last few survivors three years later, who endeavored to support life by fishing for brine-shrimp through a sieve. </div>
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Wherever readers of this blog may find themselves this Christmas, I hope that your evening meal is enriched by all the warmth and spirit of domestic tranquility that these men's meals -- whether in reality, or in their imaginations, or both -- sought to evoke so far away from home.</div>
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Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-25987884609790529972023-09-28T08:58:00.014-07:002023-09-30T06:09:02.525-07:00Franklin's knowledge of the Daguerreotype Process<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTOVjPudJzuj-84qs58VsjdUgEsglRbeED15t44ROLWpT31TEYZrLQj-mqizXpZ53hMyRCz7yhi-W9_eiSdGjL1Bgl-pPg-6H7zqwUsGz3I8JFjg1bIJo5fosn198P9XInxj-nortg4JUENJw3PdGYk6YMXr1PCQSriMaRAq6DlyaW0Mw21rqWs4n3A98M/s1737/Screenshot%202023-09-27%20at%2012.36.43%20PM.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1737" data-original-width="1200" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTOVjPudJzuj-84qs58VsjdUgEsglRbeED15t44ROLWpT31TEYZrLQj-mqizXpZ53hMyRCz7yhi-W9_eiSdGjL1Bgl-pPg-6H7zqwUsGz3I8JFjg1bIJo5fosn198P9XInxj-nortg4JUENJw3PdGYk6YMXr1PCQSriMaRAq6DlyaW0Mw21rqWs4n3A98M/w276-h400/Screenshot%202023-09-27%20at%2012.36.43%20PM.png" width="276" /></a></div>One of the questions about the Daguerreotypes by Beard that were auctioned off last week at Sotheby's has been whether or not Beard's operator would have used a reversing prism or mirror (there could also have possibly been more than one operator, and more than one sitting). Harry Goodsir noted the photographer's arrival, though he mistook the process, calling him a "Talbotypist," as he had some experiece with that process, and had sat for a portrait using it, back in Scotland.<p></p><p>Franklin himself, though, was already quite familiar with the Daguerreotype process, and indeed with Richard Beard's studio. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Nixon_(bishop)" target="_blank">Francis Russell Nixon</a>, the newly-consecrated Bishop of Van Diemen's Land, had in fact brought with him several of Beard's Daguerreotypes when he arrived in Hobart Town in 1843, and it's very likely Franklin saw them. Nixon also showed them to <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/pellethepoet/19183915059" target="_blank">Alfred Bock</a>, who was so delighted by them that he embarked on what was to be a lengthy career as one of Australia's pioneering photographers. Bock tried to establish a commercial studio, but was discouraged when <a href="https://www.daao.org.au/bio/baron-george-goodman/biography/" target="_blank">George Barron Goodman</a> -- who had purchased a sub-patent from Beard -- complained about Beck's advertisements. This pushed the opening of his establishment to 1847, though he seems to have been privately active as a photographer throughout the period of the delay.</p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzsZb2qwqZGG1c8m5WulHhOD8oTDBnLfo_Le8tKhyphenhyphengZCgt9W4gTfRIKQsREj1-kCvqFdIrStqwwddIRwzRhSyRd1yoyL_sAGwlM4KZJ1RTD783_ZWb0viiF_jCmHgVaaDyqNBOJuv-tPh_HA9kY-Y9iA_ORkxUlV02ptCYga7QwG1X7onDNnYQ2wPByTQP/s3872/Dr._William_Bland_by_George_Baron_Goodman_,_Australia,_1845%20(1).jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3872" data-original-width="3176" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzsZb2qwqZGG1c8m5WulHhOD8oTDBnLfo_Le8tKhyphenhyphengZCgt9W4gTfRIKQsREj1-kCvqFdIrStqwwddIRwzRhSyRd1yoyL_sAGwlM4KZJ1RTD783_ZWb0viiF_jCmHgVaaDyqNBOJuv-tPh_HA9kY-Y9iA_ORkxUlV02ptCYga7QwG1X7onDNnYQ2wPByTQP/s320/Dr._William_Bland_by_George_Baron_Goodman_,_Australia,_1845%20(1).jpg" width="262" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Dr. William Bland, by Goodman</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table>Goodman had opened his first studio in Sydney in 1842, urging local citizens to "endure half a minute of immobility" to obtain a fine portrait, using a structure he built on the roof of the Royal Hotel in Sydney. He was not, alas, as successful in this endeavor as Beard; his images came out rather dark, one local reviews spoke of a "want of life" while another decried their "cadaverous and unearthly appearance." The surviving images don't seem quite as awful as all that, though many do seem to lack contrast. For our purposes, what matters is that Goodman left Sydney for Hobart in 1843, opening a Daguerreian studio in a boarding house at 20 Patrick Street, which was in business from that summer to February of 1844. After his departure, he continued the pattern of running his studio out of temporary quarters, and after a few years of further moves, he quit the business and retired to the Continent, dying in Paris in 1851. <p></p><p>The takeway from all this is that Franklin, either through Bishop Nixon (who became a close friend of the Franklins), Bock (who was the son of the ex-convict painter Thomas Bock, known for his portrait of the Franklins' adopted daughter <a href="http://www.ourtasmania.com.au/people-mathinna.html" target="_blank">Mathinna</a>), or Goodman, was surely acquainted with the Daguerreotype process. Further confirmation comes via an item published in the very first issue of the <i>Tasmanian Journal </i>-- the organ of the Royal Society of Tasmania, founded by the Franklins -- in which an excerpt from a letter from Dr. Richardson to Franklin was published, touching specifically on Daguerreotypes, their use in photographing natural history specimens (!), and a method for turning them directly into printing plates in order to reproduce them. While this method -- which was destructive of the original Daguerreotype -- never caught on, the fact that Franklin and Richardson were discussing it with such easily familiarity as early as 1840 seems quite clear evidence that both men had already taken a keen interest in the process, even before local operators arrived in Hobart.</p><p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQTqT5teglREbhi3GcDvgn2ElPlc1om-3SZBruUjtIjmKDfQX9Sm0N56Yi7BfMW5rvTCEdn1kZWHgtF9eziV1IIpkn9WkwDPp7BwePuf3J4KOgDKw5UIAimfgBI17CqwcPVULmbNFR1KBWTnAyh0rH3TCa4j76d3xnK_PWJETWYEq7q35nF4we0VoW9IqB/s1374/Screenshot%202023-09-30%20at%209.04.48%20AM.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1374" data-original-width="1238" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQTqT5teglREbhi3GcDvgn2ElPlc1om-3SZBruUjtIjmKDfQX9Sm0N56Yi7BfMW5rvTCEdn1kZWHgtF9eziV1IIpkn9WkwDPp7BwePuf3J4KOgDKw5UIAimfgBI17CqwcPVULmbNFR1KBWTnAyh0rH3TCa4j76d3xnK_PWJETWYEq7q35nF4we0VoW9IqB/s320/Screenshot%202023-09-30%20at%209.04.48%20AM.png" width="288" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>courtesy Sotheby's</i></td></tr></tbody></table>So when, in May of 1845, Franklin sat for what (so far as we know) was his first and only Daguerreotypic portrait, he had been familiar with the technology for more than five years -- and, I suspect, would have noticed the presence or absence of a mirror or prism on the front of the camera, and deduced (or inquired about) its purpose. In either orientation, his Daguerreotype shows the medals on the "short" side (underside) of his uniform, which is the <i>wrong</i> side, so he must have anticipated their being reversed. And I believe he would have noticed if Beard's operator had used a mirror or prism -- so my surmise would be that he did not. Beard's may well have advertised -- and produced -- non-reversed images, but that may just as readily been done in the copying process as when the image was first taken. </p>Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-84894378631534241232023-09-21T15:57:00.009-07:002023-09-22T14:04:43.633-07:00Richard Beard, the Daguerreotype and the Images of the Franklin Expedition<p><b><span style="color: #ffa400;">Guest post by Frank Michael Schuster</span></b></p><p>The month of May 1845, when Sir John Franklin's expedition set sail started out as a cold and unfriendly one throughout Europe. An outbreak of the flu was raging in London, which had also caught the expedition's leader. But by mid-May the weather improved and the 15th and 16th of May were sunny and noticeably warmer than the days before and after. Perhaps that was why a camera operator, or as they called it in those days, a Daguerreotypist from one of Richard Beard's studios, was just then coming on board HMS Erebus. He had been commissioned by Lady Jane Franklin to take photographs of Sir John and the other officers of the flagship, as well as Franklin's second-in-command Francis Crozier. With the help of a heavy curtain and a simple wooden chair, a makeshift studio was created on deck, where the men, supervised by the officers, still stowed provisions and other supplies. This might be why the officers in the pictures are wearing only their "undress uniform" instead of one of the more formal ones usually more appropriate to the occasion. Some, like Lieutenant James Walter Fairholme, are not even wearing their coats given the surprisingly mild weather. For, when it was his turn to be photographed, he simply borrowed “Fitzjames' coat [...], to save myself the trouble of getting my own,” as he later wrote to his father (Potter et. al., <i>May We Be Spared </i>146). Unfortunately, we know nothing about the wind on those days, but the camera operator obviously wanted to take advantage of the sunny day.</p><p>The entrepreneur Richard Beard (1801-1885), whose employee was taking the pictures, was interested in everything he could make money from. That is why he had become fascinated by the new possibilities of photography. A few weeks after the new invention by he Frenchman Louis Daguerre (1787-1851) in 1839 he had acquired a license for his process for England and Wales. Knowing that Daguerre's process only produced a one-off image, Beard also took an interest in the calotype process invented by William Fox Talbot (1800-1877). Talbot’s pictures could be reproduced relatively easily, but Beard could not come to an agreement with the inventor. </p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW_SwkjorEz4CYmISv4gwKa3MTu5oxNf04CHOU0O-m2vXW5ZktcZ6ctAMmIbN1IYnMANurDG-UDNa56oJzVLEzKFrUoyeNCzmPIetkSuf830KqxVNaPhAsKL2ArPZPkcW9hyTzkmXN7d9Qlu7eoaAC4mqqCi-Xtt03ijXe4AJ8x7okhKfGyuyk-KlhBfbc/s502/mirror-camera.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="368" data-original-width="502" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiW_SwkjorEz4CYmISv4gwKa3MTu5oxNf04CHOU0O-m2vXW5ZktcZ6ctAMmIbN1IYnMANurDG-UDNa56oJzVLEzKFrUoyeNCzmPIetkSuf830KqxVNaPhAsKL2ArPZPkcW9hyTzkmXN7d9Qlu7eoaAC4mqqCi-Xtt03ijXe4AJ8x7okhKfGyuyk-KlhBfbc/s320/mirror-camera.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>figure 1</i></td></tr></tbody></table>So Beard set out to solve the three major problems his customers had with the daguerreotype as quickly as possible: The exposure time was too long for portraits, the images were slightly distorted and mirror-inverted, and they could not be duplicated. By hiring the chemist John Frederick Goddard (1795-1866) and by using an American camera patented in March 1840 in England he was able to reduce the exposure time considerably to under a minute. As the inventors Alexander S. Wolcott (1804 -1844) & John Johnson (1813-1871) did not use a lens, but a concave mirror instead, the images were not reversed, and thus the second problem was solved. (figure 1) That the images were slightly distorted, just like today, hardly bothered anyone, apart from the Duke of Wellington, who complained that his nose was too big in the image. <p></p><p>The pictures were tiny, just 2 x 2.5 inches (5 x 6 cm), a format usually referred to as the “Ninth Plate”, because the plates originally produced for the photographs could be cut into nine pieces. But as many people were used to miniature paintings, which had been very <i>en vogue</i> before, this was not a problem, which left just one, problem to solve, and Beard again did what others didn't.</p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQHpRY0u8sKcWKOBBqkCJveqOuj8I_xz8hMJ1kITe7MxBnpmnaqCtvsIPmszyjgfgue2Em_YhUKTH1qg4yIcJuSZsTurg4lmLnnMUHKldXU6zSb2-nfedX-xfSbVArt7rw1H5CpJxvWEANd0JCGUqT4CcxnkJNNtnBGvXIpCmb_mPfyGZtV3P7DQCogrYs/s512/beard.png" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="512" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQHpRY0u8sKcWKOBBqkCJveqOuj8I_xz8hMJ1kITe7MxBnpmnaqCtvsIPmszyjgfgue2Em_YhUKTH1qg4yIcJuSZsTurg4lmLnnMUHKldXU6zSb2-nfedX-xfSbVArt7rw1H5CpJxvWEANd0JCGUqT4CcxnkJNNtnBGvXIpCmb_mPfyGZtV3P7DQCogrYs/s320/beard.png" width="313" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Figure 2</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br />The Frenchman Antoine Claudet (1797-1867), also held a license from Daguerre since 1839 and thanks to this was able to open his own studio in London in 1841, despite Beard’s license for the whole of England. Claudet used two cameras (figure 2). In this way he got two nearly identical pictures at once. Beard’s operator's used their relatively easy reloadable camera a to take two pictures in quick succession. As John Johnson also had invented a device for preparing and <a href="https://visionsnorth.blogspot.com/2023/04/a-visit-with-parks-canada-part-3-of-3.html" target="_blank">polishing</a> the silver-coated copper photographic plates, there was no need to do this by hand anymore. Thus Beard’s operators were faster then Claudet's, as an astonished Journalist of <i>The Spectator </i><a href="http://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/4th-september-1841/20/photographic-miniatures" target="_blank">reported</a> on 4 September 1841. This led to the erroneous surmise that Beard's camera allowed two photos to be <a href="https://visionsnorth.blogspot.com/2009/06/franklin-daguerreotypes.html" target="_blank">taken at the same time</a> by adjusting a mirror. <p></p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiINEAUT3AD-J2cu7AglKGXHeg_PbBu4JQyaOXSnwFp95jXsglzxUkxK8AScZYridZslnNqUBJHxRa7jEZOX2Un9_ZnjDgGj1n_1G_HSKuv13nZaisOBnyxnFnK1nt-DtMkLG-TScD6Ms1_opijN3Y_ISsQTLyorxouNjtccBpPjPZ_k6fbrHOt_RF6RDum/s584/3_camera.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="230" data-original-width="584" height="126" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiINEAUT3AD-J2cu7AglKGXHeg_PbBu4JQyaOXSnwFp95jXsglzxUkxK8AScZYridZslnNqUBJHxRa7jEZOX2Un9_ZnjDgGj1n_1G_HSKuv13nZaisOBnyxnFnK1nt-DtMkLG-TScD6Ms1_opijN3Y_ISsQTLyorxouNjtccBpPjPZ_k6fbrHOt_RF6RDum/s320/3_camera.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Figure 3</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table>In early 1843 the problem of how to duplicate a daguerreotype was finally solved, when Wolcott and Johnson invented a copying apparatus. It was basically a daguerreotype camera to photograph daguerreotypes, which additionally was suitable for enlarging and could be used as a projector (figure 3). Using mirrors, the copy was reverted to the original. This meant, in order to obtain an identical image of the original, it was necessary to make a copy of the copy. The inventors themselves came to London to set it up in Beard's studios. After all, the customers had become more demanding and expected larger pictures. <p></p><p>Therefore, at the same time Beard also changed his camera. From then on, he used a camera that could take pictures in the "sixth plate" format, that is 2.75 x 3.25 inches (7 x 8 cm). Even the ever critical William Henry Fox Talbot called Johnson’s and Wolcott’s improved Daguerreotypes in March 1843 “<a href="https://foxtalbot.dmu.ac.uk/letters/transcriptDocnum.php?docnum=4784" target="_blank">the most perfect thing of the kind I have yet seen</a>."</p><p>But unfortunately little is known about the new camera itself. The only thing certain is that it used the powerful lens newly invented by the Hungarian-German mathematician Joseph Petzval (1807-1891) and distributed throughout Europe by the Austrian optician Friedrich von Voigtländer (1812-1878).</p><p>As the images were now taken with a lensed camera, it was usually assumed that they were now inverted. As the images of the Franklin expedition officers where taken with the same camera, it was (up to now) thought that the daguerreotypes of Sir John Franklin, Commander James Fitzjames, Lieutenant Henry Thomas Dundas Le Vesconte, the purser Charles H. Osmer and the surgeon Stephen S. Stanley from the collection of the Scott Polar Research Institute are originals, as well as the images of Captain Francis R. M. Crozier, James Fitzjames, the mate Charles Frederick Des Voeux, and the assistant surgeon Henry Goodsir, which have now surfaced, because these images are inverted, while the others would be copies. But as with everything related to the Franklin expedition, it is not that easy. </p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz9BVHOH9z6MHW-G2GmzMJRvY650IUD2hixh5aacMgnWjJBX2zJEzW2Ghb5U2xGYSpEyps8RhFE5SSFRBhcT2P1t9BgqfAQ4wG89-Pgb-2tI5MRfAlvOsYe-OECeGquQ5UYaVg33zbDHj9yIkcOKWMhGh2gEWwZmFxowzhB4XcLY2UP0mxUfILQgucJLLs/s2048/Screenshot%202023-09-21%20at%206.51.16%20PM.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="586" data-original-width="2048" height="115" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhz9BVHOH9z6MHW-G2GmzMJRvY650IUD2hixh5aacMgnWjJBX2zJEzW2Ghb5U2xGYSpEyps8RhFE5SSFRBhcT2P1t9BgqfAQ4wG89-Pgb-2tI5MRfAlvOsYe-OECeGquQ5UYaVg33zbDHj9yIkcOKWMhGh2gEWwZmFxowzhB4XcLY2UP0mxUfILQgucJLLs/w400-h115/Screenshot%202023-09-21%20at%206.51.16%20PM.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Figure 4 </i></td></tr></tbody></table>And yet, a year after the expedition had left England, Beard’s competitor Claudet proudly declared in an advertisement in <i>The Times </i>on 20 May 1846 that all his portraits were now taken with “the right and left side in their natural position,” whereupon the angry Beard responded in the same paper on 9 June by pointing out that his pictures had always been non-reversed, "first by means of his patent concave reflector, and also (for more than three years past) by the use of a reflector in combination with a lens." (<i>The Times</i>, 9 June 1846; figure 4).<p></p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6wEySwyL3y1xzeqVEbFxXhG-H4yppXicKlZ6EOcAfpx4cfZJ4idE7qea7Fxa1dPrjeEyAXavN7BIsXNB3VuEeIFTkfVo-HwPH6b4rnYczwGcgZ-00uehq9VtuEzy9lN8s2mJuV1Rx7EqjPFKJj-RdkJYy1byjoRw2Fbcq--1q6tu2TyzGW2lucjqz0VIQ/s774/fig5_lens.png" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="774" data-original-width="668" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6wEySwyL3y1xzeqVEbFxXhG-H4yppXicKlZ6EOcAfpx4cfZJ4idE7qea7Fxa1dPrjeEyAXavN7BIsXNB3VuEeIFTkfVo-HwPH6b4rnYczwGcgZ-00uehq9VtuEzy9lN8s2mJuV1Rx7EqjPFKJj-RdkJYy1byjoRw2Fbcq--1q6tu2TyzGW2lucjqz0VIQ/s320/fig5_lens.png" width="276" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Figure 5</i></td></tr></tbody></table>What this reflector looked like, we don’t know for sure, as we don’t know much about the camera improved by Johnson and Wolcott. The easiest solution to get a non-reversed image was to put an adjustable mirror in front of the lens at a 45° angle, as for example a lens marketed from the French photographer Pierre-Ambrose Richebourg (1810-1875) shows. (figure 5)<p></p><p> The problem with such a simple device was that it easily shifted, especially in windy conditions. Unfortunately, we neither know if it was used at all, if the camera was aimed at or past the sitter, nor what the wind conditions were like during that particular days. It may be that the camera operator sometimes used the correction mirror and sometimes not. It could very well be that all the newly discovered daguerreotypes are originals, whether or not they have been reversed. The two mirror-inverted shots of Fitzjames might indeed be originals, as they are not identical. The same may be true of the different shots of Des Voeux, although one is mirrored and the other is not. Perhaps the original also went to the family and one of the surviving daguerreotypes is a copy. </p><p>However, most of the surviving images of the officers of the Erebus, of which there are two identical photographs, are not reversed. If they are not both copies, then Beard's employees must even have made copies of copies, which may well be the case, given the high demand. James Fitzjames alone wanted three or four pictures, as he wrote in a letter. (see Potter et. al. <i>May We Be Spared</i> p. 117).</p><p> Looking at the <i>Illustrated London News </i>of 13 September 1851 (p. 329) does not help either. Although the images, or rather engravings after the daguerreotypes, finally appeared in the press the comment published with them tells us nothing about how they where taken. On the contrary: It even contains at least one major error: While it's true that Richard Beard had supplied the Franklin expedition with a complete Daguerreotype apparatus, as the author of the comment to the images explained, this was probably <i>not</i> the same camera with which the pictures were taken. As the polishing apparatus invented by Johnson in 1841 has been discovered in the wrack of HMS Erebus recently, we know, that the camera on board the ship must be Wolcott's original mirror camera, as the polishing device was made for ninth-plate images, as Peter Carney has <a href="https://visionsnorth.blogspot.com/2023/04/a-visit-with-parks-canada-part-3-of-3.html" target="_blank">noted</a>. It's a forgivable mistake more than half a decade after the pictures were taken, especially as the author was not a specialist in daguerreotypes but rather in maritime matters, as it is none other than William Richard O’Byrne, (1823–1896) the author of the “Naval Biographical Dictionary” published two years earlier in 1849.</p><p> So what remains but confusion? </p><p>If photos were indeed only taken on one day, and the camera operator only came back on the second day to present the pictures, or if the studio was still in the same place on the second day as it was on the first, it may even be possible to tell from a close examination of the images whether and when a corrective mirror was used. For Daguerreotypes are so clear that one can sometimes sense the reflection of the camera and the camera operator behind it in the pupils of the sitter. Or since there is at least one shot (that of Le Vesconte) where you can see where he was sitting, you might even be able to tell from the reflections on the caps where the camera was pointed. </p><p>But this is a matter for others, for whom the question of whether it is an original or not is more important than for me and who, above all, have more patience than I .</p><p></p><p><i>The author would like to thank Gina Koellner, Mary Williamson, Peter Carney, Michael Robinson, Bill Schulz and last but not least Russell Potter for their inspiration and helpful comments.</i></p>Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-85985568244518188342023-08-25T21:30:00.077-07:002023-09-03T06:23:30.556-07:00The newfound Franklin Daguerreotypes<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5024" data-original-width="4194" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHlAIuMpQZS-HZp6_6ROo8GwFd0uVCPgBbxwZ-uk0fAxoIc8GgsmrVWOyqI5aHaNC6kzO9h5p9HZLgfdWd4PhM48-8hmkhykFKnhIBMaVOLBzusQgRqfjPAdhnlcZwNe_FarR2YC2hdt9OTL_eEDzpSQgawuLThAdCv8PVszvJeACm4NkfrH_6FeW780bm/w334-h400/7cO3I1NF.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="334" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Courtesy of Sotheby's</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;"><i style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></i></div>Sometimes, historical artifacts can be doubly lost -- lost in the sense that their present location is unknown, but also lost in the sense that nobody even suspected that they existed. Such is the case with the set of Daguerreotypes soon to go before the hammer at Sotheby's -- they are apparently Lady Franklin's own presentation set -- and will offer yet another doubling of the views we now possess.<div>The main reason that no one was previously aware of them -- other than the fact that their owner, a direct descendant of Sir John, is said to have been very private -- is that we thought we already had them. That is, we'd assumed that the fine, gold-toned ones at the Scott Polar Research Institute -- given as part of the Lefroy bequest (these were Sopia Cracroft's relatives) <i>were</i> Lady Franklin's set. And yet, all the while, this extraordinary set had remained in family hands, well and quietly looked after, in what appears to be its original presentation case from the firm of Richard Beard.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAT8c2_7srFiBeDUGeX3DxHDSDnTvAGhV5j5BjnDwbBN29gN5QlHbmJyEnTsjjStX_t9iXZAGnha6xtA-p0NrRb_Xik1G25FbeApjDGT6Zo89pYd4cFq8289KFgQ3X3crcIYK8D7k9x4YZeltbEyQLMWOGpK_83wMV0A0nXfIdmTYzfkwNJd8ZmGG6RZrG/s1116/John_Franklin_expedition_crew_1845.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1116" data-original-width="750" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAT8c2_7srFiBeDUGeX3DxHDSDnTvAGhV5j5BjnDwbBN29gN5QlHbmJyEnTsjjStX_t9iXZAGnha6xtA-p0NrRb_Xik1G25FbeApjDGT6Zo89pYd4cFq8289KFgQ3X3crcIYK8D7k9x4YZeltbEyQLMWOGpK_83wMV0A0nXfIdmTYzfkwNJd8ZmGG6RZrG/s320/John_Franklin_expedition_crew_1845.jpg" width="215" /></a></div>A close look at the set reveals that it's not completely unseen -- in fact, this very set was used as the source for the full-page woodcut in the <i>Illustrated London News</i>. Both the left-right orientation and the order of the Daguerreotypes match; this makes it quite clear that this set was the likley source. Somewhat confusingly, the ILN seems to say that the set they engraved was based on Beard's set, but if so it must have been identically arranged. Another curious feature, noticed by Peter Carney, is that -- judging from the buttons -- some of these images are copy Daguerreotypes, since the copying process reverses the reversed image and puts the buttons back on the "right" side!</div><div><br /></div><div>The one other set of images that we have -- the <a href="https://visionsnorth.blogspot.com/2009/06/franklin-daguerreotypes-iii.html" target="_blank">mounted copies</a> now in the Derbyshire Record Office at Matlock -- seems to have used the same source Daguerreotypes, but in a different order. This set is associated with Franklin's daughter Eleanor, and there's reason to regard it as her personal one (it's since come to light that the paper prints were more probably made around 1875, so a set of the originals certainly remained in family hands at that time). All this of course leaves even more mystery around the long-known Daguerreotypes at Scott Polar, many of which show the subjects in different poses, and which set is missing any image of Francis Crozier -- had Sophy purchased some "second poses" at the same time as her aunt's set? Did some of the officers not claim their likenesses?</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5mRpombTDs6MhjTDQuZHk-g39L3nKDz31Qb7nyyvExsJAMTTi15GqRE23uBFEznHGhg3b2tk-ZgRJCp7Lv3cxwo8iDWZBMBOyWhZWYUwSHPTbRrjtmG-5g8vGuBKyOXwEWeUyapiSEaWW6qcREGvJMcCGfJcCqcR1xjw7MgU28LHIxNQX0uViMVj4I0Fz/s838/ILN.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="552" data-original-width="838" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5mRpombTDs6MhjTDQuZHk-g39L3nKDz31Qb7nyyvExsJAMTTi15GqRE23uBFEznHGhg3b2tk-ZgRJCp7Lv3cxwo8iDWZBMBOyWhZWYUwSHPTbRrjtmG-5g8vGuBKyOXwEWeUyapiSEaWW6qcREGvJMcCGfJcCqcR1xjw7MgU28LHIxNQX0uViMVj4I0Fz/s320/ILN.png" width="320" /></a></div>But whatever the actual differences in arrangement and provenance, it's clear that, as Sotheby's has indicated, the set they have on offer is the "premier" set -- one assembled at the time, in a contemporary case that may very well have been made for them by Beard's. In his letter of May 19th, Reid underscores this point: "Lady Franklin hase ordered all the officers Likeness to bee taken and mine amongst the Rest, with my uniform on - She keeps them all by herself." All that is consistent with the newly known cased set.</div><div><br /></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9jUB8ZYyZTN578hzs3Oo7mmMAIeUDGCmUn5vrhjpE9oToNMmdmByTY0LUApWowIX8GmUkcV9hlO3RwoWeYb9_igHOU9InzyaKLtOnGFUQBXV7PsKDj6lQ7ZXO05TP88E-7ZEdOxG8bBb2ShqJOZdgoGkcH6GCygwrshDmsS0jfm8rez7d3piwsEYnrl9n/s3434/Crozier.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2090" data-original-width="3434" height="195" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9jUB8ZYyZTN578hzs3Oo7mmMAIeUDGCmUn5vrhjpE9oToNMmdmByTY0LUApWowIX8GmUkcV9hlO3RwoWeYb9_igHOU9InzyaKLtOnGFUQBXV7PsKDj6lQ7ZXO05TP88E-7ZEdOxG8bBb2ShqJOZdgoGkcH6GCygwrshDmsS0jfm8rez7d3piwsEYnrl9n/s320/Crozier.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Image on left Courtesy of Sotheby’s</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table> </div><div>So what do we learn from these new images? Well, for one that the engraver for the ILN was not a terribly good portraitist; many of the faces seem quite wrong, and (by way of example) Reid seems a good two stone lighter in his woodcut. But now that we can compare the original Daguerreotypes to the paper copies, we can see how much was lost in the translation. Nowhere is that more apparent than with the images of Francis Crozier, who seems almost a different man in his Daguerreian version; as my friend and fellow Franklin researcher Logan Zachary put it, </div><div><blockquote>"It's an extraordinarily different Crozier, despite being the exact same photograph. His face has quite literally been "fleshed out" now, with details added back in that we didn't know we were missing. His eyes and chin have much more definition, and somehow even his lips and nose look fuller in the new image. He simply looks like a different man. The worried, almost indecisive look from the old photograph melts away -- he looks like a Captain now, someone who gave orders."</blockquote></div><div>Part of this, of course, is due to the careful gold-toning and tinting with which these new images were prepared, in addition to the going-over of all the buttons and hat-bands with a translucent golden ink. But the level of detail is simply magnitudes higher; Calotypes are paper prints from paper negatives, and are by their nature a tad "grainy"; Daguerreotypes are metal plates, sensitized and developed by vapors, and their thin skin of exactitude has a grain size not much larger that a molecule of silver halide, roughly 1-2 micrometers.</div><div><br /></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib3-1ZF_L5yVjdPBPLA5zju4dTT604U2PuwJlKSrGDZQadHtXToVMlvIxbmvBz3HOMJigIrhB55bRnoAxPCQLtnzvSVuj-7kry4ii8b9DusF7fVd5AJexuHUF-XtxunIvUUBOvdHUE2nHNqK1ZQKet4GkyMV5T0kmfS4xnC7UPFVSHBMqvi2VaIw43l2KE/s5229/frank_sm.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="5229" data-original-width="4401" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib3-1ZF_L5yVjdPBPLA5zju4dTT604U2PuwJlKSrGDZQadHtXToVMlvIxbmvBz3HOMJigIrhB55bRnoAxPCQLtnzvSVuj-7kry4ii8b9DusF7fVd5AJexuHUF-XtxunIvUUBOvdHUE2nHNqK1ZQKet4GkyMV5T0kmfS4xnC7UPFVSHBMqvi2VaIw43l2KE/s320/frank_sm.jpg" width="269" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Image Courtesy Sotheby's</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table>Seeing Crozier whole is thus a powerful experience on so many levels. Some, I know, might wish they'd skipped the golden ink, and its application to his slightly-scrunched hatband looks a tad silly -- but, combined with the flesh tones of the face, it seems to me to add considerably to the sense of "presence." Daguerreotypes, as a form, have that particular ghostly quality, one that the cultural historian Walter Benjamin called the "aura." And -- though there is nothing quite like holding a Dag in one's hand and tilting it until, in a feat of angular magic, lo, the apparition comes! -- it seems to me that these crisply digital copies have nearly that same aura. They will give me, and many others for whom this is such an essential story, food for thought for a long while yet.</div><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div></div>Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-64394002541783149922023-05-26T02:30:00.004-07:002023-08-21T11:50:36.430-07:00A Visit with Parks Canada (Part 3 of 3)<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2LU7x7z-cOHZK4e8Z6HiysG3u4CvZ14fC0eqU8unBqlh1NL029zrf7NYQF7kOLc10TYfn59PdLXy3iNfbfERZqb60PXWKPxsmfl-_FA2X1DdjxrjtVuEUmv8K32SQaS6sqF6z5569HyRAzEJoVz191Bdt0U2scGK302h3uWJLVV3HEDLTJaZ4B0NtBg/s1600/IMG_20230327_131452035.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2LU7x7z-cOHZK4e8Z6HiysG3u4CvZ14fC0eqU8unBqlh1NL029zrf7NYQF7kOLc10TYfn59PdLXy3iNfbfERZqb60PXWKPxsmfl-_FA2X1DdjxrjtVuEUmv8K32SQaS6sqF6z5569HyRAzEJoVz191Bdt0U2scGK302h3uWJLVV3HEDLTJaZ4B0NtBg/w400-h300/IMG_20230327_131452035.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Charles Dagneau opening a drawer of relics for myself and Mary Williamson<span style="text-align: left;"> </span></i></span></td></tr></tbody></table>Of course, throughout the tour all of us felt immensely excited to learn more about the vital work being done <i>on</i> the Franklin relics, but we couldn't help ourselves if the most exciting prospect of all was to see conserved relics that we could actually examine, and even hold in our (gloved) hands! Our guide for this portion of the tour was Parks archaeologist Charles Dagneau, whom most of us had first met back at the Death in the Ice opening in Ottawa in March of 2018. Now, five years later, we had the immense good fortune to visit the twin vaults that store conserved artifacts -- Franklin's amongst many others -- and really see them up close.<div><br /></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYp00Xj7Z_xisw-CP6f-uLElEkQKo_ydZUNuwOMxSrBmAy5W9n7UE9o_nWQr6WK-NCwPa9pIxl-BkH_LTbKvRcKxCp_RmU-RLhTmc3Cj8Dl0iH0BPIqjUZTzCiyCGueqRQBgMGtC4dFfa3D7FzjIheZFvjPmMhaxBpBK65L9GeFb1WX1_Y1dDoGzVUsw/s4032/IMG_7650.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYp00Xj7Z_xisw-CP6f-uLElEkQKo_ydZUNuwOMxSrBmAy5W9n7UE9o_nWQr6WK-NCwPa9pIxl-BkH_LTbKvRcKxCp_RmU-RLhTmc3Cj8Dl0iH0BPIqjUZTzCiyCGueqRQBgMGtC4dFfa3D7FzjIheZFvjPmMhaxBpBK65L9GeFb1WX1_Y1dDoGzVUsw/s320/IMG_7650.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Fragment of the wheel of HMS Erebus</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table>There are two vaults, as it happens -- one in which the humidity is kept higher, so as to prevent any further drying-out of organic (wood, leather, ropeage, etc.) artifacts -- and one in which the humidity is kept low, so as to minimize the chance of rust or corrosion on metal objects. We visited the high-humidity room first, where we saw the wheel of the <i>Breadalbane</i> (see last post) as well as the section of the wheel of HMS Erebus. It was a remarkable feeling to grasp -- again, with gloved hands -- the wheel that Franklin and his helmsmen had grasped when steering their ship amidst the Arctic ice! Also in this room we saw ceramic objects -- indifferent to moisture as they are -- including several of the transferware and other plates and serving vessels so far recovered. Charles explained to us the how the quality of the China gave an indication of those who dined upon it: the Blue Willow plates would have been used by the crew in the forecastle, while the Whampoa ones were likely from Franklin's own table in the great cabin, or else the officers' mess.</div><div><br /></div><div>We then went to the room of metal objects, which I'd been particularly curious to see. Among the stars there was the still-unidentified "scientific instrument," which is visible in the photo at top -- it was far smaller than I'd pictured it, and more delicate; clearly it had been made with care and precision, but for what purpose we don't yet know. </div><div><br /></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKlujUz8MLgirOTP88Zuhdy9F9PhFl0Ii6JgRgC4ioGry8Aiu1eMpZQpZdTmMwQmI8O7kkKJa7xo3SotDSzGJhBD5JMhLl2AzfPEAL45LP-930J03K-gG3wV0gskN7HvH9VhFC7J2r-SHiKkOPSWOKNegiQ3mfDD69H1eTFOzHrhRaPBGLrzIkehkvDQ/s4032/IMG_7666.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKlujUz8MLgirOTP88Zuhdy9F9PhFl0Ii6JgRgC4ioGry8Aiu1eMpZQpZdTmMwQmI8O7kkKJa7xo3SotDSzGJhBD5JMhLl2AzfPEAL45LP-930J03K-gG3wV0gskN7HvH9VhFC7J2r-SHiKkOPSWOKNegiQ3mfDD69H1eTFOzHrhRaPBGLrzIkehkvDQ/s320/IMG_7666.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">The heavy metal object</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table>Nearby, I spotted a smaller, heavier metal object -- it had a handle shaped rather like one might see on a large rubber stamper, but was all solid brass; the underside disclosed a flat surface, within which was a smaller rectangle with a small half-moon cutaway on one side. I was struck at once by the fact that the square seemed similar in proportion to the Franklin daguerreotypes made by the operator from Richard Beard's firm. I knew that, as part of the Daguerreotype process, the silver-covered copper plates had to be carefully polished to a mirror-like finish, and it struck me that the object might have been used for such polishing.</div><div><br /></div><div>After our tour, I had to head back home to Rhode Island -- I'd driven to Ottawa -- and didn't get back until quite late. The next day, looking at the image of that metal object, I decided I'd send it to Bill Schultz, a friend and collector whose article on the Franklin Daguerreotypes is a standard reference in the field. He was quite excited, and agreed with my inference; he in turn sent the photos to Mike Robinson, the president of the Daguerreian Society and one of the world's top experts on the historical process.</div><div><br /></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0YTDgFcelRaLc-9ZLQG6QbhFTnNTp3ahCUZa8L9rfcB5p1UpCQqvuFy5S8Fxb_a5XtgbrPLeiuCH7cDTR28SW_0BNBlXOYsyCWVjOF17VNFOtfisIh1rSxvuKwIcH0doGZDa-K3BqSkVEt-GnwOA2f5DuGy9Ox-WOooRA34WUfo3TdEw63ZVMk6u0OA/s1130/Screenshot%202023-04-08%20at%2012.01.51%20PM.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1130" data-original-width="782" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi0YTDgFcelRaLc-9ZLQG6QbhFTnNTp3ahCUZa8L9rfcB5p1UpCQqvuFy5S8Fxb_a5XtgbrPLeiuCH7cDTR28SW_0BNBlXOYsyCWVjOF17VNFOtfisIh1rSxvuKwIcH0doGZDa-K3BqSkVEt-GnwOA2f5DuGy9Ox-WOooRA34WUfo3TdEw63ZVMk6u0OA/s320/Screenshot%202023-04-08%20at%2012.01.51%20PM.png" width="221" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Johnson's Patent</span></td></tr></tbody></table>Mike at once recognized it as part of a plate-polishing apparatus patented by <a href="https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~brett/genealogy/photos/jjohnson.html" target="_blank">John Johnson</a> in 1841; the identification was made all the more certain because Johnson himself was a business associate of Richard Beard! If, as described in the <i>Illustrated London News</i>, the Beard apparatus used to take the officers' portraits in 1845 was the same as was stowed aboard ship, it would make perfect sense that it would have included Johnson's device. However, on checking the object's measurements, Peter Carney realized that it corresponded with the smaller, ninth-plate format (the Franklin portraits were sixth-plates); based on this, Mike said it's more likely that a different camera, a <a href="https://www.guyjbrown.com/blog/wolcott-camera/" target="_blank">Wolcott model</a> which used a tin mirror in the place of a lens, was the one Beard supplied to the expedition (Wolcott was also a business partner of Johnson, and his camera is sometimes called the Wolcott-Johnson camera).</div><div><br /></div><div>So now we have something we didn't have before: clear evidence that indeed such an apparatus was aboard HMS "Erebus," and that, assuming it was used as intended, Daguerreotypes were almost certainly made during the expedition. It's only one small step to add to the hope that someday such plates may be recovered; if they are, they'll be the earliest photographs ever taken in the Arctic!</div><div><br /></div><div>In conclusion, I'd like to extend our warm and collective thanks to Jonathan Moore, Charles Dagneau, Cindy Lee Scott, and everyone else we met for their tremendous generosity in giving us a glimpse of the less-visible -- but extraordinarily important -- work they do in these labs.</div>Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-49705281526325830612023-05-24T02:30:00.001-07:002023-05-24T02:30:00.134-07:00A Visit with Parks Canada (part 2 of 3)<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijchnDkkkfQLBfgBkzPimI_jTmJgPVsAzsR0Day6J-btIldRNgUdv9AslxkbjfZNgR74RkInbHn961B0jm6e5D3bsLzcFKzy0mW0fKb517P8kPCzCCQrkYjPRvpG8T59NvYuQ7t6iz6wsfLADjZNdM2NPaqwLbQLNcT-iTy6a0AL9em9_j_Y55DtvL0A/s478/tour.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="385" data-original-width="478" height="323" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijchnDkkkfQLBfgBkzPimI_jTmJgPVsAzsR0Day6J-btIldRNgUdv9AslxkbjfZNgR74RkInbHn961B0jm6e5D3bsLzcFKzy0mW0fKb517P8kPCzCCQrkYjPRvpG8T59NvYuQ7t6iz6wsfLADjZNdM2NPaqwLbQLNcT-iTy6a0AL9em9_j_Y55DtvL0A/w400-h323/tour.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i>Charles Dagneau, Cindy Lee Scott, and Jonathan Moore</i></span></td></tr></tbody></table>Our tour now commenced in earnest. One of the first staff members we met was Cindy Lee Scott, who among her other responsibilities is in charge of the making of replicas of artifacts for display. She was particularly excited to show us her new and larger 3D printer, along with a series of preliminary versions of the replica of the sword hilt found aboard HMS "Erebus." Through looking at these alongside one another, we could see how corrections were made, including those of precise scale, before the final version for the <i>Death in the Ice</i> was produced. Later on, we were able to see the original hilt; it was remarkable to see how every exact detail had been matched.<div><br /></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAUTBXO21Ce_2goqlbXw3q6rg8B1WR2pWe6VeLVsqB7aThDsNItEnTIg2E98UxpUYBNwyhKWFZF0R4jWLHAXgLNHfpHcfBZwxPGLj4fs_O870LfbuC6FKnVYxAaN6EMt1VbW3tAIScN4sPlFGuQeZ0sNcVy4S6yBRtV40wyWpTQW5mmm1moXniIbunzg/s3824/IMG_7646.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2110" data-original-width="3824" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAUTBXO21Ce_2goqlbXw3q6rg8B1WR2pWe6VeLVsqB7aThDsNItEnTIg2E98UxpUYBNwyhKWFZF0R4jWLHAXgLNHfpHcfBZwxPGLj4fs_O870LfbuC6FKnVYxAaN6EMt1VbW3tAIScN4sPlFGuQeZ0sNcVy4S6yBRtV40wyWpTQW5mmm1moXniIbunzg/s320/IMG_7646.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Trial hilts</i></td></tr></tbody></table>Cindy Lee then continued guiding our tour, taking us to other departments such as the reproduction lab, the paper lab, and finally the objects lab. There, we saw numerous artifacts still undergoing various processes to stabilize their materials. In a large tank, we saw the recovered cannon, now down to its final few baths, its surface looking as smooth and sharp as it must have when it was mounted aboard ship. Later, we saw the three cannonballs that were found inside its bore; they'd been difficult to extract, explained Parks archaeologist Charles Dagneau, and had to eventually be mechanically "scooped" out. Cindy Lee's enthusiasm for her work, and the excitement she and other staff based at the lab felt about the process of conserving the recovered items from the ship, came through loud and clear.</div><div><br /></div><div>Near these tanks, we also saw a freeze-dryer, in which paper, wood, and certain other organic items were being treated. Here, the goal is to extract all moisture, something which sometimes follows, and sometimes precedes, other treatment. Wood, of course, can pose a special challenge, as when it dries it also loses a good portion of some of its internal material; this then has to be replaced with polyethylene glycol (known as PEG in the trade). Many will recall the wreck of the <i>Mary Rose</i>, which after being brought to the surface and reconstructed, had to constantly be sprayed with cold water to prevent this loss, and thereafter with PEG to replace the lost water so that each element would maintain its structural strength. The process is similar with much smaller wooden items.</div><div><br /></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifyGvF33sjn1yA80LZqfOnV5OTsL-Dz9h1or8whSzUQzDY7U_tWjWq3CFCZ_Fei3HdJGHJZxZz0EsRz_KdgvVq7sklnAgoOcZbfQapL12TzjUd4Q2nRDLY4S6Nre4FA6kUbe6X3VVsOjfrhVAokVtuaxn2LffbrJ0B3pM4CVSUJIXj5VWDrGkgkJRP-Q/s4032/IMG_7657.jpg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="4032" data-original-width="3024" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifyGvF33sjn1yA80LZqfOnV5OTsL-Dz9h1or8whSzUQzDY7U_tWjWq3CFCZ_Fei3HdJGHJZxZz0EsRz_KdgvVq7sklnAgoOcZbfQapL12TzjUd4Q2nRDLY4S6Nre4FA6kUbe6X3VVsOjfrhVAokVtuaxn2LffbrJ0B3pM4CVSUJIXj5VWDrGkgkJRP-Q/s320/IMG_7657.jpg" width="240" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The wheel of <i>Breadalbane</i></td></tr></tbody></table>Each type of wood or metal may have varying requirements, and artifacts with more than one type pose a special challenge. One of the most challenging ever was the ship's wheel of the <i>Breadalbane</i>, a supply ship and part of a Franklin search convoy, which sank off Beechey Island in 1853. It was removed by the ever-intrepid Joe MacInnis, who had discovered the wreck in 1980 -- against the strong advice of archaeologists -- and spent many many years in conservation due to its several types of wood and different metals. It rests now in a custom-made case in Parks's conservation facility, a testimony both to the Franklin search and the care and persistence of conservators.</div><div><br /></div><div>In my next installment, I'll be taking my readers into that same vault where the wheel is stored -- specifically to those shelves on which those Franklin artifacts that have made it through the conservation process are stored!</div>Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-8427499063869408522023-05-23T03:00:00.003-07:002023-05-23T07:04:10.684-07:00A Visit with Parks Canada (part 1 of 3)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgapIP4OdMt4554FkbEFh2oRN9hdJf59XHiZEnP7Q4Gih8EtX-khB2lqi5epo-Df9od7ZK1kwxatMSl1HslFak9ZDVTdp16VkfRiKESXPYppUPsJfrEOX8fBn5DcmTOEK0UP9BaW0jKj4wXRMrCtsU4YSrwXz7JIoxbAZ7KKO7OAu0oiSOBKlUjyf87fg/s2681/IMG_7634.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2046" data-original-width="2681" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgapIP4OdMt4554FkbEFh2oRN9hdJf59XHiZEnP7Q4Gih8EtX-khB2lqi5epo-Df9od7ZK1kwxatMSl1HslFak9ZDVTdp16VkfRiKESXPYppUPsJfrEOX8fBn5DcmTOEK0UP9BaW0jKj4wXRMrCtsU4YSrwXz7JIoxbAZ7KKO7OAu0oiSOBKlUjyf87fg/s320/IMG_7634.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>In a city filled with government buildings, this one doesn't stand out all that much, not from outside. Among other things, it contains a laboratory where children's toys are tested for their safety. But to me -- along with my colleagues Peter Carney and Mary Williamson -- this building stands alone, as it houses the most fascinating collection of materials in our world -- the artifacts brought up from HMS "Erebus" in the Canadian Arctic -- as well as the remarkable team of talented professionals who work with them, from the moment of their recovery to when -- sometimes months or even years later -- they have been fully conserved and stabilized, and may be stored or exhibited safely to generations to come.<p></p><p>Our host for our visit was Jonathan Moore, a veteran member of Parks's Underwater Archaeology Team (UAT) who last year became the the team's manager (many will recall his precursor, Marc-André Bernier, who recently retired). Jon helped us get cleared and signed in, then guided us down seemingly endless corridors with automatically-opening doors, reminiscent (as he noted) of the <a href="https://youtu.be/AJ6gdRfBW6c" target="_blank">opening sequence</a> of the 60's spy spoof <i>Get Smart</i>!</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmKNLmOfmb1Q6jEasLJOTAuuAZqG3P0e1q_aTZA0qcrsnmcJj_CDh-Z5ChO7OC25rYTsKNXczbRB-Z_KqwxUlSAwmJGTx-dHfn3hn7uvmhiqMbaRELc9I_YL9IqaahWGVeZCRQm_9pQQt5Gpigge-7wm9OyQYQYs_6IUV7dAKK2r9b0VLCaqS_Gv9mng/s4032/IMG_7635.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmKNLmOfmb1Q6jEasLJOTAuuAZqG3P0e1q_aTZA0qcrsnmcJj_CDh-Z5ChO7OC25rYTsKNXczbRB-Z_KqwxUlSAwmJGTx-dHfn3hn7uvmhiqMbaRELc9I_YL9IqaahWGVeZCRQm_9pQQt5Gpigge-7wm9OyQYQYs_6IUV7dAKK2r9b0VLCaqS_Gv9mng/s320/IMG_7635.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Behind the last set of these doors, we settled in for an introductory briefing in the team's work room, which includes a large bank of drawers for horizontal storage, a couple of glass cases with resin replicas of artifacts (Franklin's and others), and a table featuring a meticulous model of the wreck of "Erebus," with a model Parks underwater archaeologist suspended near the as-yet-unretrieved ship's bell. Here we got a preview of the day's tour, which would include meeting many of the other staff members who check in, establish conservation plans, and keep track of, a wide and growing array of artifacts that range in size from a toothpick to a cannon.<p></p><p>When a new artifact arrives, having been stabilized sufficiently for transport, it's assessed in terms of what its conservation protocols should be. Metal articles, for instance, may require an extended soak in various solutions in order to help remove accretions, stabilize the metal's surface, and protect it against the eventual exposure to air. Wooden or paper items, in contrast, need mainly to be dried, but it's a process that requires extraordinary care. With wood, one later step requires a special polymer which, once absorbed by the wood, will fill the cavities between its fibers and give it sufficient strength to hold together. Paper is its own special case, especially if it appears to consist of multiple sheets, which require careful timing and great care to separate as the process finishes. For those reasons, the book or "portfolio" recovered during the 2022 dive season was unavailable for us to see.</p><p>And so, after our introductory briefing, we set out for our tour of the premises. First, we'd see the work area where the UAT's suits, helmets, and equipment are stored; then the area where replicas of the artifacts are carefully prepared; after that, a visit with the book and paper conservator, and the artist whose careful sketches help record each object and the location where it has been found. Lastly, of course, that area of the building which we were keenest to see -- the rooms where conserved relics are stored. Over the next few days, I'll be sharing the highlights of our visit, concluding with those much anticipated rooms -- it's my hope that my readers will get the sense of sharing in our excitement. So stay tuned!</p>Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-19927550857625201152022-12-19T07:12:00.005-08:002022-12-19T07:19:59.614-08:00Potential written material found on HMS Erebus<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBMkCLTQJ2QNV0no68YfFIm1ZHf2vao9MX8qTRWCfIGqbcLCF_Dbux1WLEAeCoYNn0kf1NGTaKZUE7v41hb2aUAwNzwecPcfIkaA32mO0oks04S-a-sIW8lf47a_qnwlOyDhzFSJ0WDcYUNyvFd1MjpCPTZNX5uJNkK0H3JLakMWritlJ9wSDZEiCwEw/s1200/ecxav.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1187" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBMkCLTQJ2QNV0no68YfFIm1ZHf2vao9MX8qTRWCfIGqbcLCF_Dbux1WLEAeCoYNn0kf1NGTaKZUE7v41hb2aUAwNzwecPcfIkaA32mO0oks04S-a-sIW8lf47a_qnwlOyDhzFSJ0WDcYUNyvFd1MjpCPTZNX5uJNkK0H3JLakMWritlJ9wSDZEiCwEw/w317-h320/ecxav.jpg" width="317" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Image from Parks Canada</i></td></tr></tbody></table> It could be the breakthrough we've all been waiting for since the rediscovery of Franklin's ships -- or it could be just a small and tantalizing addition to what we know. In news covered around the world yesterday, we learned of what Ryan Harris, veteran member of the Parks Canada Underwater Archaeology Team (and the first person to see the shadow of "Erebus" on a sonar screen in 2014), called "the most remarkable find of the summer": a leatherbound folio, containing leaves of paper and a quill pen tucked inside its cover, found in the area of the steward's pantry of HMS Erebus.<p></p><p>The dream of finding additional written materials goes back at least to the 1870's, when Jane Franklin asked <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Young#The_Pandora_Expeditions" target="_blank">Sir Allen Young</a> to return to the Arctic in hopes of finding some; she died before he returned, and his expedition found no new papers. The cry of "papers" once again became the motivating factor for <a href="https://www.canadianmysteries.ca/sites/franklin/search/search19cSchwatka_en.htm" target="_blank">Schwatka's search</a> of 1878-80, and while they made some remarkable finds of human remains and other artifacts, the only sheet of paper they recovered turned out to be -- symbolically enough -- a blank one.</p><p>We don't know yet whether this new find bears any legible writing -- it's apparently still in the laboratory where paper conservators are patiently working on it -- and of course, even if it did, there's no telling how informative it might be. Other items found earlier in this area were associated with Edmund Hoar, Sir John Franklin's personal steward, and among these a pencil case was prominent. Might the newfound folio be a sketchbook? Then again, why the quill? The best case scenario might be that it might contain both writing and sketches, and we know of at least one other such journal, that kept by <a href="https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-506033" target="_blank">Captain's Steward John Messum</a> aboard HMS "Vesuvius" during the Crimean War (1854-55). </p><p>On the other hand, it might contain what might seem to be relatively trivial matter, perhaps some record-keeping of the contents of the Steward's pantry, or -- like the inscrutable "Peglar" papers, a mixture of doggerel verse and cryptic writings. From my own personal perspective, though, even if such a document were most mundane in its entries, each such entry would have one incredibly precious detail: a date. Right now, the lack of any post-1848 timeline is probably the singular most glaring gap in all we know about what Franklin's men did after the desertion of the ships. Were they re-manned? A simple date would tell us so. Abandoned again? When? And, like enormous goalposts, even a tiny handful of such dates would enable use to organize all kinds of other data with much higher accuracy; we would at last begin to know the "lay of the land" (and the water).</p><p>And yet, even if it has no information later than the desertion of the vessel, any kind of journal would be a goldmine, the more so if it were Hoar's own. As Franklin's steward, Hoar would have attended him daily, the more so during whatever illness or injury led to his death on June 11th 1847. Indeed, although Jane Franklin described the volume as a "quarto" rather than a folio, this could even be Sir John's <a href="https://visionsnorth.blogspot.com/2009/07/sacred-from-every-eye-but-mine-sir-john.html" target="_blank">long-lost private diary</a>. It certainly fires the imagination!</p><p>Every so often, we come upon a document that literally rewrites history -- this newfound folio could well be just such a one -- only time and patient work on its pages will tell.</p>Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-2523000522899906132022-11-25T11:31:00.007-08:002022-11-25T13:32:43.844-08:00A Season of Marvels<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw5H-xT5giny93dQkTY92K_xd7TX3-MtoQLmUncLYkpmVAI1jW9JrJqBBHmxZkSH7LzzctmdO9I6Dna0Y5hX98nlLNl2Mb02cKwtLjoTOaiRn36kmzAPw1fdWgm8JGeuPbHY29HUsX0hxfQ2ZP8xUS9U6ZNknTIUkRzdE5oAcxzV0rorRVpMH3nQieRQ/s2048/greenwich%20copy.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgw5H-xT5giny93dQkTY92K_xd7TX3-MtoQLmUncLYkpmVAI1jW9JrJqBBHmxZkSH7LzzctmdO9I6Dna0Y5hX98nlLNl2Mb02cKwtLjoTOaiRn36kmzAPw1fdWgm8JGeuPbHY29HUsX0hxfQ2ZP8xUS9U6ZNknTIUkRzdE5oAcxzV0rorRVpMH3nQieRQ/w400-h300/greenwich%20copy.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">L to R: Peter Carney, Mary Williamson, Russell Potter and Regina Koellner</span></td></tr></tbody></table>For myself and my fellow editors of <i>May We Be Spared to Meet on Earth</i>, it has been a season of marvels, one for which all of us are enormously grateful. Although not all of us were able to be present at every event, we collectively felt and experienced a tremendous outpouring of interest in and support for our book.<p></p><p>It all began in Ottawa on September 26th, with our launch at 50 Sussex Drive at the headquarters of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. It was a special pleasure here to share the event with Matthew Betts and his extraordinary <a href="https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/HMS-Terror-Hardback/p/18506" target="_blank">book on HMS <i>Terror</i></a>; the audience's interest naturally extended to both volumes, as did their thoughtful, well-informed questions.</p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivw_jm2W4bjZ42yS3lqd1kN3NgLcp_03N4Q3f1iR7foVbCGsrDIm5AUa6tHBgypW1bXe2yWTpVOSAcoRO0mJrgXKT_taTpR2F47f8zDuGtzY1hIO-6zWvuq_srdOAx-fEs0xx9hwfobjKT34VP8BQ0cZIh7LBoZKYWCLZmYJ0n1OS3xGnOQfnHBHrcLA/s4032/shantymen.JPG" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivw_jm2W4bjZ42yS3lqd1kN3NgLcp_03N4Q3f1iR7foVbCGsrDIm5AUa6tHBgypW1bXe2yWTpVOSAcoRO0mJrgXKT_taTpR2F47f8zDuGtzY1hIO-6zWvuq_srdOAx-fEs0xx9hwfobjKT34VP8BQ0cZIh7LBoZKYWCLZmYJ0n1OS3xGnOQfnHBHrcLA/s320/shantymen.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Hooks and Crookes</span></i></td></tr></tbody></table>Our next event was thousands of miles distant -- at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich in the UK. Here, Gina was able to join us (photo above), and our UK friends -- many of whom we'd not seen in two years or more -- were present; curator Jeremy Michell gave us a very fine introduction. Scarcely a day later, three of the four of us were on flights to Dublin, whence we made our way to Athy and this years Shackleton Autumn School. It was a special pleasure to see so many old friends and fellow polar enthusiasts, among them Joe O'Farrell, Bob Headland Rob Stephenson, Geir Kløver, and Medbh Gillard. Our launch there, hosted by our good friends at O'Brien's pub, was also wonderfully enhanced by a resounding version of Lady Franklin's Lament provided by the shantymen of <a href="https://www.hooksandcrookes.com/" target="_blank">Hooks and Crookes</a>.<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI5rYMHkOuiSvEUztuixcfvxlJwm-IJ3z3gfOkFiff6YJ5FpDcS8dW_qtLv3-0RDw4VurPHhFMscJ87ODWwS5XauEILqdIEytNIDc8zANLsRb1V76JwRM3lOOzgPqhZk6L1oiBYTMSSJb-rBXAfPp1ZazCl29cwN4yDLeTlV2QCKceKX9giG-T02n2uw/s2000/kamookak%20copy.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1333" data-original-width="2000" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI5rYMHkOuiSvEUztuixcfvxlJwm-IJ3z3gfOkFiff6YJ5FpDcS8dW_qtLv3-0RDw4VurPHhFMscJ87ODWwS5XauEILqdIEytNIDc8zANLsRb1V76JwRM3lOOzgPqhZk6L1oiBYTMSSJb-rBXAfPp1ZazCl29cwN4yDLeTlV2QCKceKX9giG-T02n2uw/s320/kamookak%20copy.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Then, in a return to Ottawa, came a further bow for us all. I was deeply honored and gratified to be awarded the Louie Kamookak medal, named after my late friend and Inuit historian, and to welcome Peter, Mary, and Gina as Fellows of the RCGS. As an added bonus, we got to meet Jared Harris, whose wonderful portrayal of Francis Crozier on AMC's The Terror we all admired, along with David Kajganich, the series' writer and showrunner! The gala dinner at the Canadian War Museum was a memorable evening for everyone present.<p></p><p>And so, while we don't have any further events planned at present, we're looking forward to a less far-flung holiday season -- and to those copies of our book that many (including ourselves) will be placing under their Christmas trees this year, lying in wait -- or so we hope! -- to convert more people yet to our wonderful shared obsession.</p>Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-46522254433051319552022-08-10T07:39:00.007-07:002022-10-05T14:53:06.206-07:00A look ahead to events for May We Be Spared ...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdRPZD4Go7am_ABYN-aohAamcKqzHxpfkV2OxkryzfLTakpyXqzf1OC_A9CdeA2OesUtSIoUiHwvJtKhPlD5tP8mCXeskN7tAzOiEMCYZbjQKSIeTHqjK2hNahtMcVnBPOvvK6Mjmm5TU-sy3Ob2MU9whm6_jaD6-XyskpH92Uemr7XGsxhJRGnlN1uQ/s1024/50_sussex_drive_building_at_sunset-1024x683.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="1024" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgdRPZD4Go7am_ABYN-aohAamcKqzHxpfkV2OxkryzfLTakpyXqzf1OC_A9CdeA2OesUtSIoUiHwvJtKhPlD5tP8mCXeskN7tAzOiEMCYZbjQKSIeTHqjK2hNahtMcVnBPOvvK6Mjmm5TU-sy3Ob2MU9whm6_jaD6-XyskpH92Uemr7XGsxhJRGnlN1uQ/s320/50_sussex_drive_building_at_sunset-1024x683.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Finally, the day draws near! We're happy to announce some of the first few events for <i>May We Be Spared</i> -- watch this page for further details as the dates draw closer.<div><br /></div><div>Our big launch will be at the headquarters of the Royal Canadian Geographical Society at 50 Sussex Drive in Ottawa, on <a href="https://interland3.donorperfect.net/weblink/weblink.aspx?name=E347378QE&id=80" target="_blank">September 26th</a>. We're delighted that this event will also be the launch for Matthew Betts's extraordinary <a href="https://www.amazon.com/HMS-Terror-Fitting-Voyages-Discovery/dp/1526783134" target="_blank">book on HMS <i>Terror</i></a> -- it's hard to imagine a better pairing. We're also going to be a part of the 2022 Terror Camp online event the weekend before (September 24/25) where I hear we may be joined by several cast members of the show; it will be fascinating, I think, to see these letters paired with some of the actors who portrayed their writers!</div><div><br /></div><div>Moving right along, I'll be crossing the proverbial pond (my fellow editors being already on the other side) to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, for a <a href="https://www.rmg.co.uk/whats-on/lecture-theatre/members-lecture-letters-lost-franklin-arctic-expedition" target="_blank">talk and presentation</a> as part of their series of Members events (it will also be open to the public, I believe) on October 27th. I have no doubt there'll be the usual gathering at the Trafalgar Tavern after -- we'd better reserve all the tables! </div><div><br /></div><div>From there, it'll be over the Irish Sea to Athy, and the <a href="https://ejiyc3kucb5.exactdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/22-Shackleton-Autumn-School-Timeline-1.pdf" target="_blank">22nd annual Shackleton Autumn School</a> that weekend. This will be the first time it's been held in person in two years, and it will be fantastic to gather again with such excellent friends -- and of course, then retire to O'Brien's Pub across the way. O'Brien's has gracefully agreed to host the official launch, so I have a feeling pints of Guinness will be involved!</div><div><br /></div><div>We're hoping for an event or two in the US this fall as well -- plans are still being sorted out -- I'll update this post, and/or share details in a new one, as soon as they're firmed up!</div>Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-42820920589264535422022-06-16T15:00:00.002-07:002022-06-16T19:03:14.707-07:00Our youngest correspondents<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2VPOYDJUEyYIISifurZBZSGvPWFk6LZfjFH_JfTnQCFcDRYbNS9a0gkfhJO_oMWX9Pqf_-5KPQDsRYyoOy2di_V9wRXcvlA3vMPNtnQdIBPWAPxBo4151S64eLPxiU-nS5WGvsTSKq8tMUY0xGD17jLwdkUvrctZ3oNCVJMoCvqEV7EhAYA3x7hYm9A/s524/poor-toes.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="523" data-original-width="524" height="319" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2VPOYDJUEyYIISifurZBZSGvPWFk6LZfjFH_JfTnQCFcDRYbNS9a0gkfhJO_oMWX9Pqf_-5KPQDsRYyoOy2di_V9wRXcvlA3vMPNtnQdIBPWAPxBo4151S64eLPxiU-nS5WGvsTSKq8tMUY0xGD17jLwdkUvrctZ3oNCVJMoCvqEV7EhAYA3x7hYm9A/s320/poor-toes.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Among the many correspondents in our forthcoming <a href="https://www.mqup.ca/may-we-be-spared-to-meet-on-earth-products-9780228011392.php?page_id=46&#:~:text=May%20We%20Be%20Spared%20to%20Meet%20on%20Earth%20is%20a,fateful%20expedition%20to%20the%20Arctic." target="_blank">book of letters</a>, two of the very youngest stand out from all the rest, both for their sincerity and heartfelt feelings, and also for the sweet, childish humor that still shines forth from their carefully-penned missives.<p></p><p>James Fitzjames was so struck by the letters that he enclosed them with one to his sister-in-law Elizabeth Coningham, with this preamble:</p><p></p><blockquote>"I leave you these two letters from my little friends – as I am sure any-thing that gave me pleasure will gratify you ... perhaps you will think I am foolish to care for the little children’s letters – but so it is – I am as much pleased with their expressions of regard – exaggerated though they be – as I should be with the more studied, but probably not so genuine, effusions of many grown people."</blockquote><p>The children in question were Eliza Francis ("Fanny") and Maria Jane Campbell, the daughters of Fitzjames's friend Henry Dundas Campbell, a decorated soldier and later a colonial governor who had befriended Fitzjames early in his career, helping him secure his appointment as Midshipman in 1831. Fanny would have been around twelve years old, and Maria a year younger. Writing in her best school hand, Fanny expressed her sentiments as well as any adult:</p><p></p><blockquote>"I am very sorry indeed to hear you are going to leave England so soon we shall think of you when you are far away in the snow and some times when your poor toes are freezing with cold you must think of us as we shall be longing for your return."</blockquote><p>Maria's letter was more chatty, expressing the regret that Fitzjames could not visit them again until his return, adding "I hope you will not forget us when you are in among the snow and when you come home you will pay us a nice long visit." She closed her letter "Your ever affectionately and attached friend, Maria Jane Campbell" and then added a curious postscript: "Missie says just as if you care a fig for our attachment to you."</p><p></p><p></p><div>This annoying "Missie" may well have been their older sister Harriet, who would have been about sixteen at that time, just the age for such a jovially mocking riposte. It must surely have greatly amused Fitzjames, who was always prone to jest in prose, and touched him more deeply than these young writers may have realized. He closed his letter to Elizabeth with this salutation to her and William: </div><div></div><blockquote><div>"I think the love of a child is a thing not to be thrown away lightly. </div><div><br /></div><div>There are some grown up people too, whose love I would not exchange for any worldly good. And of these I need not say you & William stand far highest in the heart </div><div>of your affectionate</div><div><br /></div><div>James Fitzjames"</div></blockquote><div></div>Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-20748578858097594802022-05-25T07:26:00.013-07:002022-05-25T08:38:33.083-07:00 The Engines and Engineers of Erebus and Terror<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><b><span style="color: #ffa400;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A guest post by Peter Carney</div></span></b></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdP_nMqHGjIza53UsPE4PNLnFpEWN2SnR9r6fHzPZGRRdqJZMMMdzNWHTikorRZwl1l5G_P-zkFO6Q6h6mikeTWBbfS7vCAV20wsy9m6VqlQ0jaLh9ztfQEUR6zpSjCwI4tPtd63lBXO-mlw7SmkLldz9gkdAcE4MJFbCrU7rFQljZtQRQCPP7cYdAQA/s964/irving_sketch.png" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="686" data-original-width="964" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdP_nMqHGjIza53UsPE4PNLnFpEWN2SnR9r6fHzPZGRRdqJZMMMdzNWHTikorRZwl1l5G_P-zkFO6Q6h6mikeTWBbfS7vCAV20wsy9m6VqlQ0jaLh9ztfQEUR6zpSjCwI4tPtd63lBXO-mlw7SmkLldz9gkdAcE4MJFbCrU7rFQljZtQRQCPP7cYdAQA/s320/irving_sketch.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Sketch by John Irving</i></td></tr></tbody></table>The steam engines Engines fitted to Franklin’s ships Erebus and Terror have long been a topic of interest to me. They were the subject of my <a href="http://erebusandterrorfiles.blogspot.com/2010/07/archimedes-and-croydon-engines-of.html" target="_blank">first ever blog post</a> in July 2010. Much of the meagre information available was gleaned from letters from officers of the expedition from the time when the ships were being fitted out at Woolwich and the engines tested in the river Thames, letters that are transcribed in full in our forthcoming book,<i> <a href="https://www.mqup.ca/may-we-be-spared-to-meet-on-earth-products-9780228011392.php" target="_blank">May We Be Spared to Meet on Earth: Letters of the Lost Franklin Arctic Expedition</a>:</i></div><p></p><blockquote><p> “The ships are getting on famously – our engine is down alongside. It came drawn by 10 coal black horses & weighs 15 tons.”</p><p>- James Fitzjames to John Barrow Jr, before 4 April 1845</p></blockquote><p></p><p></p><blockquote><p> “ Our engine once ran somewhat faster on the Birmingham line. It is placed athwart ships in our afterhold, and merely has its axle extended aft, so as to become the shaft of the screw. It has a funnel the same size and height as it had on the railway, and makes the same dreadful puffings and screamings, and will astonish the Esquimaux not a little.”</p><p>- John Irving to Catherine Irving [sister-in-law], 16 May 1845</p></blockquote><p></p><p>There are, of course, many further questions which I hope the Parks Canada underwater archaeology unit will be one day able to answer: Were they fitted with Stephenson’s link valve gear? This important mechanism allowed the cut-off of steam admitted to the cylinder to be minutely controlled for best efficiency or maximum power. Did they employ Isaac Babbitt’s patent bearings? -- a development which increased by more than tenfold the mileage a locomotive could do before its axle bearings needed overhaul. Was the supporting structure made of wood or cast iron?</p><p>The rich trove of new material assembled for <i>May we be spared to meet on Earth,</i> fascinating as it is, doesn't offer any further answers to these questions. They are frankly not the sort of details that departing explorers would put in their last letters to their families and loved ones. However, and perhaps even more interestingly, they do provide an insight into the personalities of the two men charged with the care and operation of the steam engines and they highlight the contrasting attitudes which the two captains held with regard to both the engines and to the engineers.</p><p>Franklin was certainly forward looking in his enthusiasm for steam power:</p><p></p><blockquote><p> “I meant to have had the steam up here to see that all was right – but we really could not at present spare either the space or time. We are satisfied however that all is right and kept in order by the Engineer and it is my intention to take the first opportunity of our being beset to get the steam up, and certainly have every thing ready for its immediate use by the time we reach Lancaster Sound. We find our Engineer Mr Gregory a good & valuable man – and willing to do anything required of him.”</p><p>- John Franklin to Edward Parry, 10 July 1845</p></blockquote><p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH1ovnajvkQbUVw5KM_iK8FeyztogDs920fQhd8bhCPGH1DRFul9EEh3jpmbk3O5H6sWriv4PqPIKmwjm4K1VWvJ3HyITHR05JQXjdzV9wCFjbhzxe4k9vip0gmKdbK3EqrKgxaz9gz1dSecubWkqTNqlqEhss0Db9VMwrLZ1oBWqQyMC_2mM3iK0feQ/s1207/John%20Gregory%20signature.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="438" data-original-width="1207" height="116" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjH1ovnajvkQbUVw5KM_iK8FeyztogDs920fQhd8bhCPGH1DRFul9EEh3jpmbk3O5H6sWriv4PqPIKmwjm4K1VWvJ3HyITHR05JQXjdzV9wCFjbhzxe4k9vip0gmKdbK3EqrKgxaz9gz1dSecubWkqTNqlqEhss0Db9VMwrLZ1oBWqQyMC_2mM3iK0feQ/s320/John%20Gregory%20signature.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>This “good & valuable man” was Engineer, First class, John Gregory.<p></p><p>John Gregory was not a Navy man and nothing suggests he had ever been to sea before he joined the expedition. Instead he had been employed by Maudslays, the firm contracted to supply and fit the engines for Franklin’s ships. No doubt he was supremely competent in his trade and highly thought of by his employer to be entrusted with such an important task.</p><p>Gregory’s sole surviving letter to his wife, sent from the Whale Fish Islands, contains a detailed and well written account of the voyage so far with affectionate greetings and thoughts for the children. The elegant yet easily readable handwriting is particularly noteworthy. </p><p>The fraying folds in the paper and the patches of discolouration tell the poignant story of this letter being passed through many pairs of hands across the generations of his family beginning with his wife and the five children he left behind.</p><p>In March of 2021 it was announced that a team led by Douglas R. Stenton had <a href="https://visionsnorth.blogspot.com/2015/06/a-well-worn-skull.html" target="_blank">matched DNA</a> extracted from human bones found in previous years on King William Island to living descendants of John Gregory in South Africa. This is the first time that the remains of an expedition member have been positively identified.</p><p>Crozier’s feelings towards steam stand in contrast with those of his commander:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>“how I do wish the Engine was again on the Dover line, & the Engineer sitting on the top of it, he is [a] dead and alive wretch full of difficulties and is now quite dissatisfied because he has not the leading stoker to assist him in doing nothing...”</p><p> - Francis Crozier to Ann, wife of James Clark Ross, 12 July 1845</p></blockquote><p></p><p>The “dead and alive wretch” in this case was Engineer, First class (acting), James Thompson</p><p>Thompson’s letters to his brother Charles are not as elegantly worded as Gregory’s example but the excellent handwriting shows he was a diligent student, except with regard to punctuation. His letters are packed with myriad details of the voyage to date from the quantities of foodstuffs provided each day to descriptions of the inhabitants of the Whale Fish islands. Indeed, Thompson comes across as one of the more compassionate observers of the Inuit who were encountered, referring to them as “A harmless set of People and very honest.” Gregory, too, describes them in similar terms so perhaps both engineers’ working class roots gave them a greater affinity for a people who led a precarious struggle for existence.</p><p>It seems that Crozier's lack of enthusiasm for the new technology of steam power was shared by many in the Navy.</p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBWS3DUE9yyDdFuG77uxk43zB2q4I80VEBIWCi6RWK_k2jbUFisgTOgJ4VPcqvWQlVFJGjwNs3AFwyYX4dYUtUjuGZpQ2nLxxXeb2xjKeZiBz3YOkXtIooedJ75kc6F7wE5Yii8gcHiCRdnn_aQLqY8LXOww3N23NJ0bouDKdRZzGgmRBVty5yRJlioA/s2048/painted-hall-memorial.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1801" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBWS3DUE9yyDdFuG77uxk43zB2q4I80VEBIWCi6RWK_k2jbUFisgTOgJ4VPcqvWQlVFJGjwNs3AFwyYX4dYUtUjuGZpQ2nLxxXeb2xjKeZiBz3YOkXtIooedJ75kc6F7wE5Yii8gcHiCRdnn_aQLqY8LXOww3N23NJ0bouDKdRZzGgmRBVty5yRJlioA/w351-h400/painted-hall-memorial.jpg" width="351" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The tablet from the Greenwich memorial</i></td></tr></tbody></table>The Engineers of Erebus and Terror were highly skilled artisans and plausibly had a higher standard of general education than their fellow Warrant Officers the Boatswain and Carpenter in each ship. However, many officers in the Naval hierarchy were cut from an older type of cloth. Enthralled by the sublime beauty of the sailing warship and the glorious memories of Nelson's victories, some viewed steam engines as infernal machines and their operators as uncouth tradesmen. This attitude seems to have prevailed when the monument in the chapel of the Naval College at Greenwich was erected in 1858.<p></p><p>The names of all the commissioned officers are inscribed on this monument, as well as the four other warrant officers. It therefore seems to me unjust to me that it omits the names of John Gregory and James Thompson, the engineers of Erebus and Terror.</p><div><br /></div>Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-65513332600265634802022-05-06T13:09:00.118-07:002022-05-10T10:38:25.501-07:00James Reid Speaks!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHjGoMwF7HR74DOyPAVbB6MeAbP7Tyo_aQM3Ob1jzCRomeegn2N4nIGHNI8Dvl3JirWdLyzOq3JU-WhB3xddo5Bn5Cy12Ti478qe0WTaz4V32gdDgW5vHhi6kz_7Syu-NNehxH0I51RRV7snRvek4Nle7o9VYR8_d5BejuDQG53g9Kkte_-HIkJfZ65Q/s957/reid_iln.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="957" data-original-width="688" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHjGoMwF7HR74DOyPAVbB6MeAbP7Tyo_aQM3Ob1jzCRomeegn2N4nIGHNI8Dvl3JirWdLyzOq3JU-WhB3xddo5Bn5Cy12Ti478qe0WTaz4V32gdDgW5vHhi6kz_7Syu-NNehxH0I51RRV7snRvek4Nle7o9VYR8_d5BejuDQG53g9Kkte_-HIkJfZ65Q/w288-h400/reid_iln.jpg" width="288" /></a></div>In my last post, I gave some previews of the remarkable letters of James Reid, the Ice Master of HMS <i>Erebus, </i>as they will appear in our forthcoming book. Now, I have something even more exiting to share: thanks to the great generosity of Dundee native Gordon Morris -- who memorably portrayed John Weekes, the ship's carpenter aboard that same vessel in AMC's The Terror -- we can now hear some snippets from Reid's letters in the accents of their original writer! A Dundee accent, Morris explained to me, is not all that different from an Aberdeen one -- it's just "a wee bit further up the northeast coast" -- and, heard here in its original tones, Reid's seemingly irregular spelling now reads as nearly phonetic. And more than that: as with many who have so far listened to these recordings, I had the eerie sense that Reid himself had, as it were, returned from the past, as alive as the day in May of 1845 that he sailed down the Thames with Sir John Franklin and his men.<p></p><div>I've arranged the excerpts in chronological order, mainly so that the context of Reid's words will be clearer; each is linked alongside the original text of the letters.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://w3.ric.edu/faculty/rpotter/morris/march_22_1845.mp3" target="_blank">22 March 1845</a> </b>-- the "Neptune" was a ship previously captained by Reid; he apparently had already made up his mind to sail with Franklin.</div><div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div>8 Smiths Place High Street Wapping March 22/45</div><div><br /></div><div>Loving wife,</div><div><br /></div><div>I hope you have received my yesterdays letter with the one pound chake from William –</div><div>There is a Letter come from Quebec from the Owner stating that if Captain Reid can be found to get him if not engaged to take charge of the Neptune and sail for Quebec 1st April – now you see how mean some Scotsmen is to pay a Master off for a few weeks. I called on them to day and told them that i wase engagen with Sir John Franklin R.N. to go with him to the North as ice Captain, but I would give them an answer on Tuesday. During th[at] time i will call on Sir John, at Woolwich, [and] if he puts me on pay just now @ £18 pe[r Month], I fix and I take my chance of the Voyage. I go [as] Master & Pilot, it is sure pay and good company. I dined with all the officers, we can find no servant, we must find one amongst [us]. You will have half pay, if I should never return, then there will be something for you and the family. Mr. Enderby will see after that what I have mentioned all Depends on putting me on pay just now, if not I take command of the old ship.</div></blockquote></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://w3.ric.edu/faculty/rpotter/morris/i_shipped_yesterday.mp3" target="_blank">26 March 1845</a> "I shipped yesterday"</b>-- "thoughts of your leg" -- Ann Reid had been nursing a sore leg.</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">so now I Shipped yesterday with Sir John Franklin R.N. to go with him to Daviss Straits, and up Langester sound in search of a passage through, it may be two years and it may be three & four but I am quite willing to go. It is no use lying at home being allwise in measurie the thoughts of your leg and leaving the family is worse than the Voyage. Sir John told me that if I went the voyage with him, and landed safe in England again, i would bee looked after all my life. The ship I go in is the Erebus, and the other is the Terror. just such ships as the Hecla but not Quite so Large. Sir John is a man 60 years old. Quite a Hero he is very fond of me as is the officers, as i answer all the quistences they put to me about the Land and ice about the Quarter we are going to.</div></blockquote><p><b><br /></b></p><p><b><a href="https://w3.ric.edu/faculty/rpotter/morris/black_ladi.mp3" target="_blank">13 May 1845</a> "The Black Ladi"</b> -- this refers to the medical exams for the crew; those that were "casten" were deemed not fit to serve. The "Black Ladi" was likely a young <a href="https://dawlishchronicles.com/2019/01/15/black-tars-black-sailors-in-the-royal-navy-in-the-age-of-fighting-sail/" target="_blank">Black seaman</a> of the day.</p><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div>Mr. Valentin[e] wase casten for the Scurvey in his Leges and the others for several things an the Black Ladi wase casten for his Leg having once Broken. – – I Received a Letter from aunty at Dundee mentioning she had Received the four Pound, I would like to here if you have Received the Money. in all sent £4[...] I will write before I Leave the River.</div><div>Remains,</div><div>your Loving Husband</div><div><br /></div><div>James Reid</div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://w3.ric.edu/faculty/rpotter/morris/mind_yersel.mp3" target="_blank">16 May 1845 </a>-- Mind yourself --</b> This letter seems to be an admonition to his wife Ann to be careful in her family dealings -- particularly with their sons -- during his absence.</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">Loving wife, mind yourself. Dount you trust to one of them for as soon as they can do for themselves they will never mind you nor me, you dount see so much of the world as I see. Let them from Home, then the Chief Part of young men Forgets there Parents and friends. Take all but give nothing, mind this Take care of yourself & the three young Lasess they are not able to mind themselves. –</div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><b><a href="https://w3.ric.edu/faculty/rpotter/morris/may_19_1845.mp3" target="_blank">19 May 1845</a> -- The day of sailing</b> [full letter] "Finlason" was a tailor in Aberdeen to whom the Rieds apparently owed some money. David Leys did sail with the expedition, but not as Quartermaster.</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;">Green Hithe London River May 19th/45 </p></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div>Loving wife</div><div>we are now all clear for a Start. will sail to day we are to bee towed with steam Down to the orkness – Lady Franklin hase ordered all the officers Likeness to bee taken and mine amongst the Rest, with my uniform on – She keeps them all by herself – Sir John Franklin Gave us prayers yesterday his Lady wase in Company, your order will bee sent to you when due. I got 6 Month’s Pay – I joined the Erebus 27 March, bee sure and Call on Mr. Finlason the Tailor and make arrangement with him, you know more about his account than I do, once you are underway with your half pay, you will bee abale to pay him part Every month, once you get the account below twenty pounds he canat Hurt you – the other Ice Master wase taken out of the ship for £37, but I Rather think he hase got it settled, we paid the Ships Comp[an]y on Saturday last. David Leys is not Quartermaster. I have nothing more in the meen time will write by the steamer if we dount go into the orkness. </div><div><br /></div><div>Good Biy keep your hart up we will both meate again, this voyage perhapes will [be] the last that ever I make. I have nothing to doo my work is Coming. I am sorry to say I am badly of[f] for Quarter Masters, and we are the leading ship, it will keep me much on my legs – I think I have Every thing Right but short of White Shirts, and whate I have are Quite gone. This Leave me Quite well. Hopes it will find you and the family the same, by this time you have Received my Chest. –</div><div><br /></div><div>Remains</div><div>your Loving Husband</div><div><br /></div><div>James Reid</div></blockquote><div><br /></div><div><b>3 June 1845 -- <a href="https://w3.ric.edu/faculty/rpotter/morris/old_gray_hairs.mp3" target="_blank">"your old Gray Hare"</a></b> (from Stromness, Orkney) -- Reid had apparently asked his wife for a lock of her hair in an earlier letter.</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div style="text-align: left;">You mention that your old Gray Hare wase not worth the sending to me, I cane only tell you that your old gray Hare is as good to me as ever, and I would [have] been very Happy if you hade inclosed one Lock of it.</div></blockquote><div><br /></div>Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-45263090412460651852022-05-01T13:05:00.052-07:002022-07-11T08:25:04.743-07:00The Letters of James Reid<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd2uYd378omVq7fcGJMXOnnKeq7m74XMl9NDkrWECEVsg9n48w6ASeIHCprs4dkjZ2onNPdlAJJVkYbxOz0r5pXQtzZGeZ0PGjtCH4JqI37YFfcQjELemnv4SNgw3QH_2sbXLR9FVs-jyGSXmPZeLNeMB-E8-FcftWqJvgfCgkHkCWjsqCAmJH_0frNg/s574/IceMasterJamesReid.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="574" data-original-width="462" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd2uYd378omVq7fcGJMXOnnKeq7m74XMl9NDkrWECEVsg9n48w6ASeIHCprs4dkjZ2onNPdlAJJVkYbxOz0r5pXQtzZGeZ0PGjtCH4JqI37YFfcQjELemnv4SNgw3QH_2sbXLR9FVs-jyGSXmPZeLNeMB-E8-FcftWqJvgfCgkHkCWjsqCAmJH_0frNg/w323-h400/IceMasterJamesReid.jpg" width="323" /></a></div>Of all the officers of the Franklin expedition, James Reid was one of the most lively and colorful. As James Fitzjames remarked of him in the 'journal' he sent to his sister-in-law Elizabeth Coningham, "The most original character of all. rough, intelligent, unpolished, with a broad North Country accent, but not vulgar – good humored, & honest hearted – is Reid – a Greenland whaler – native of Aberdeen – who has commanded whaling vessels & amuses us with his quaint remarks & descriptions of the ice." <p></p><p>Reid's own letters, however, proved far more elusive than Fitzjames's; although his family in Australia (to which his daughter Ann had emigrated) searched for them for years, they seemed to have gone entirely missing. A few years back, my friend and colleague Andrés Paredes found <a href="http://kabloonas.blogspot.com/2014/04/willing-to-go-last-worlds-of-man-who.html" target="_blank">excerpts from some of them</a> in an Australian newspaper from 1920; until then, they had still been in family hands. The newspaper articles spoke of them having been given to the "National Museum" in Adelaide (now the <a href="https://www.samuseum.sa.gov.au" target="_blank">South Australian Museum</a>), but that entity had no record of them.</p><p>Until scarcely two years ago, these excerpts were all we knew; that and all other queries to research libraries in Australia turned up nothing. And then, like a bolt out of the blue, our fellow Franklinite Alexa Price found a listing for them in the online catalog of the State Library of New South Wales! This was a surprise on many levels; Reid's daughter had emigrated to Victoria, not New South Wales, and at the time the letters had been reported in the press in 1920, they were in the hands of one of Ann's nieces. They showed the letters to a certain Dr. W.P. McCormack, a physician with a practice in <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/62712082?searchTerm=%22I%20am%20quite%20willing%20to%20go%22%20Reid" target="_blank">Tumby Bay</a>; it was he who recommended their donation to the museum. But how then did they end up in New South Wales? Some years previous, I'd checked the online catalogs of <i>all</i> the state libraries, and there no listing was to be found -- so my best explanation is that the record showed up when the SLNSW's old card catalogs were digitized and combined into a new, <a href="https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/new-catalogue" target="_blank">comprehensive one</a>.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitf5Dt_NMjvXBlxT_iL-ujoLUiWnJl7gSi9jZcaN8tdi4c3tlQWwS_ZXTXtgGVatbWdx5AXDQcp87yf5Lbrwejx-KwyDw6sED1g8VR5X6cOCmqbtkrskfnGsEHlWiai1vfGHQ9IpbYd_3_1sBrc5MVKBFkLvyQ8ngWrLWER04G_52U9dhIrpXM2Y4X0A/s4055/reid_envelope.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3481" data-original-width="4055" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitf5Dt_NMjvXBlxT_iL-ujoLUiWnJl7gSi9jZcaN8tdi4c3tlQWwS_ZXTXtgGVatbWdx5AXDQcp87yf5Lbrwejx-KwyDw6sED1g8VR5X6cOCmqbtkrskfnGsEHlWiai1vfGHQ9IpbYd_3_1sBrc5MVKBFkLvyQ8ngWrLWER04G_52U9dhIrpXM2Y4X0A/s320/reid_envelope.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Scarcely a week later, our digital request was processed, and there they were; with help from Reid's great-great-great-grandson Rick Burrows we were able to cover the cost of high-resolution versions a few weeks after that. And what a revelation! Not only was Reid distinctive as a character, but as a writer; his odd spellings in some cases seemed to reflect Scots usage, but were often his own invention: "was" became "wase"; "well" was often "will"; "stop" became "stope"; and "job" "jobe." His ear for names produced interesting results, as when Blanky, his fellow Ice Master over on HMS Terror, became "Brinkly." These oddities aside, his rich personality is everywhere in evidence, from his first letter of 22 March (when he tells his wife of his plan to join the expedition) to his final one on July 11th. In all of them, he asks after his children, particularly his "three Darulins" (the Reids’ youngest children, Ann (1833–1899), Mary (1835–1909), and Alexandrina (1838–1901). At one point, apparently, seven-year-old Ann wrote to him herself, as he thanks his wife for "Anns most welcome Letter" -- alas, that note was lost with the ships.<p></p><p>We can see him pondering his fate, and weighing the success of the Franklin expedition against other possibilities; unlike Naval officers, whaling captains were freelancers of a sort, competing for available commands and trading on their experience and connections. Reid had a particularly close relationship with the whaling firm of Samuel Enderby and Sons, and asked them to look after his family in the event he did not return. He was aware of the risks, and of the possible envy some might feel toward him, saying "No doubt there will bee a greate talking about me going this voyage, it will show that I am not frightened for my life, like some men." Most poignantly, he seems to have asked his wife Ann for a lock of her hair, which she declined to send, saying it was too gray. This prompted James to write:</p><p></p><blockquote>You mention that your old Gray Hare wase not worth the sending to me, I cane only tell you that your old gray Hare is as good to me as ever, and I would [have] been very Happy if you hade inclosed one Lock of it.</blockquote><p></p><p>As to his shipboard comrades, Reid speaks of them in admiring tones, and particularly seems to have formed a bond with young Harry Goodsir, who was assigned to the neighboring berth. "Him & I is quite chief," he wrote (<i>chief</i> being a Scots word for a close friend) and marveling that Harry had never been to sea before. And throughout his correspondence, his deep love for Ann and his family comes through in every word. His very last letter, sent from the Whalefish Islands, ends thusly:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>Respects to Robt., Forbes, and all Friends, may the Lord bee with you and my Dear Family, for three years if not through before that time, keep yourself easy about me. Trust wee will meet Again. Remember me to William Gaudy wife & family Bidding you all Good By.</p><p>Remains your loving Husband</p><p>James Reid</p></blockquote><p></p>Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-24921296799220173882022-04-11T05:59:00.153-07:002022-04-12T05:37:20.048-07:00Uncle Roddy<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUjGZpWXLQXXd2MY4ydzHdUGtDuDc6luMPu10pfgq02dEj4zBT2pDujiBhOiKlDlp8G5ymYTtfPTupCb7yRaIPv25UjEXvkXvZGACLQi3dqC9xgf0Fad8YRRN51dnlCxe6VDukK0bYDDMZ4OFcUkD5yIExd23K4U1zUgeTLfprkOrN6TB83T9elyJtDA/s2945/RO23-13%20Helicopter%20in%20Alaska.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2307" data-original-width="2945" height="314" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUjGZpWXLQXXd2MY4ydzHdUGtDuDc6luMPu10pfgq02dEj4zBT2pDujiBhOiKlDlp8G5ymYTtfPTupCb7yRaIPv25UjEXvkXvZGACLQi3dqC9xgf0Fad8YRRN51dnlCxe6VDukK0bYDDMZ4OFcUkD5yIExd23K4U1zUgeTLfprkOrN6TB83T9elyJtDA/w400-h314/RO23-13%20Helicopter%20in%20Alaska.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><span style="color: #ffa400;"><b>A guest post by Mary Williamson, co-editor of <i>May We Be Spared to Meet on Earth</i></b></span><div><br /></div><div>Roderic Fenwick-Owen (1921-2011) or “Uncle Roddy” as I knew him, is probably best remembered by Franklin enthusiasts as the author of <i><a href="https://www.librarything.com/work/3598323/details/71062772" target="_blank">The Fate of Franklin</a></i> (Hutchinson, 1978), an exhaustive biography of his three times great Uncle Sir John Franklin. But his writing career had started thirty years previously with a history of the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Desert-Air-Force-Roderic-Owen/dp/B000SDF48C" target="_blank"><i>Desert Air Force</i></a> (Hutchinson, 1948) and a couple of novels, <i><a href="https://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=31112257022&searchurl=ds%3D20%26kn%3DOwen%252C%2BRoderic%26sortby%3D17&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-title16" target="_blank">The Flesh is Willing</a></i> and <i><a href="https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=30531186262&searchurl=an%3DOwen%26sortby%3D17%26tn%3DEasier%2Bfor%2Ba%2BCamel&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-title1" target="_blank">Easier for a Camel</a></i>. The novels are probably best forgotten, but <i>The Desert Air Force</i> fared better and was reprinted in paperback. It led on to a biography of Lord Tedder, who had written a Foreword to <i>The Desert Air Force</i>. Roddy interviewed him in Washington & then descended on New York. Through a mutual friend from Oxford, he was offered the use of a house in MacDougall Alley, a mews off Washington Square. He just had to be let in and given a spare key by Jackson “something-or-other” (Pollock!) who was living in the studio upstairs. Roddy had no idea how well regarded Jackson Pollock was, so when he was offered one or two paintings to take back to England (“a frightful daub”) he refused! In later years he would admit to regretting this hasty decision.</div><div><p></p><p>Roddy had a privileged childhood, being sent to Eton which he always claimed to have hated, but the contacts he made there & later at Oxford would prove invaluable to him on his travels all over the world. It would be wrong, however to imply that money was plentiful. Roddy’s father George Fenwick-Owen had inherited sufficient money to lead a comfortable life, but lost everything in the financial crash of 1929, and to make matters worse, he then ran off with the governess, leaving Roddy & his two sisters to be brought up solely by their mother Bettina. She famously claimed that she had to make do on what was previously her “dress allowance”. </p><p>But travel could be managed on a shoestring, particularly when there were contacts who could secure a passage on a ship to far flung destinations. Through a friend of a friend, Roddy ended up as Assistant Purser on Clan Urquhart, a cargo ship travelling from Liverpool to Sydney, from where another friend used his influence to get him onto a cargo boat for Fiji. Roddy then spent a year beachcombing in the South Seas, during which he was seduced by, and married, a Polynesian princess called Turia. He left her and moved on, publishing his experiences when he returned to England in his first travel book <i><a href="https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&cm_sp=SearchF-_-home-_-Results&tn=Where%20the%20poor%20are%20happy&an=Owen" target="_blank">Where the Poor are Happy</a></i> (Collins, 1954) along with two more novels set in the South Seas, <i><a href="https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&cm_sp=SearchF-_-home-_-Results&tn=Green%20Heart%20of%20Heaven&an=Owen" target="_blank">Green Heart of Heaven</a></i> and <i>Worse than Wanton</i>.</p><p>Roddy’s particular interest in John Franklin began in the early 1970’s. His Aunt Susan, widow of Uncle John Rawnsley, who lived at Well Vale, Lincolnshire, expressed a wish to give “her” collection of books on John Franklin to Lincoln County Library. Roddy pointed out that they weren’t hers to give. They had been inherited by his grandfather Walter Rawnsley, then passed to his wife Maud & from her to Roddy’s mother Bettina, but without having been removed from Well Vale. The deed had already been done, but Roddy turned on the charm and managed to extract them from the County Librarian, and on reading through was well & truly hooked. </p><p>“Day and night, the North-West passage haunted me” he wrote in his memoirs. His recent biography on the life of Mavis De Vere Cole, <i><a href="https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&cm_sp=SearchF-_-home-_-Results&tn=Beautiful%20and%20Beloved&an=Owen" target="_blank">Beautiful and Beloved</a></i> (Hutchinson, 1974) had been well received, which left him in a good position to ask his agent Ann McDermid, her immediate reply being: </p><p>“John Franklin? – You mean Benjamin Franklin, don’t you?” </p><p>“No, John. Sir John of the Frozen North!” </p><p>“Oh, that one … we know a lot about him in Canada, of course. Well I can always put it up to Hutchinson’s”</p><p>And Hutchinson’s reply “Well, I think that’s absolutely splendid Roddy …” made it all plain sailing!</p><p>“I ought to visit the Arctic, if I’m going to write about it properly” were Roddy’s thoughts in 1976. He mentioned his predicament to his brother-in-law by marriage, a former Ambassador to the Holy See, who remarked “Why not get someone to send you there? It shouldn’t be beyond your ingenuity!” As it happened, August 1976 was the 150th anniversary of Franklin’s arrival at Prudhoe Bay, on the second land expedition. Roddy contacted BP, who were already interested in celebrating this event and were delighted to involve a descendant of Sir John Franklin. They wanted a monument in Anchorage, Alaska.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoz4Xt0UKbdvTVio9GPAVtGPbRzPbmJt939hGgijkq7pBdn60OEOnOXrtCmt6gjFKYrAn3BdEegtTKGna_jNCmfCbzrP20ZQ9PV4bDFnhyEdGQJDlpUq7FQj6OfcKELzYhs-m0J5QoOmRQxOlTb3zThqznKFehpC_RES9czJB-hthXc_LJrCGJSlQzag/s640/UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_b6e5.jpeg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhoz4Xt0UKbdvTVio9GPAVtGPbRzPbmJt939hGgijkq7pBdn60OEOnOXrtCmt6gjFKYrAn3BdEegtTKGna_jNCmfCbzrP20ZQ9PV4bDFnhyEdGQJDlpUq7FQj6OfcKELzYhs-m0J5QoOmRQxOlTb3zThqznKFehpC_RES9czJB-hthXc_LJrCGJSlQzag/w400-h300/UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_b6e5.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>Roddy suggested using just the head of the Franklin figure standing on a plinth in Spilsby Town Square. Nobody had ever seen his head at eye level before. (Russell, Gina, Steve & I located Franklin’s head in Anchorage in 2019 & Steve took this photo) A further plaque would be placed at Deadhorse Airport, for which Roddy agreed to compose the words, make a short speech & unveil it. <p></p><p>Roddy managed to visit various key places, the first being Franklin’s furthest point west at Return Reef. It seemed likely that the reef had been washed away, so the helicopter landed on Stump Island nearby. Next on the agenda was Winter Lake by seaplane, to locate the site of Fort Enterprise. Roddy remarked in his memoir “The whole settlement had disappeared, almost without trace …. Even when sitting on the site of Fort Enterprise I found it impossible to reconstruct the Franklin party’s experiences realistically. Nothing fitted my preconceptions. Things as I’d thought they would be, had to be replaced by things as they were. I felt a distinct sense of loss.”</p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-giJTI6vlXo7DtHrMYyILHziaJUnhkLaeKM4U1lVFiD0tbci-mhuTWFNIB2DPoH7Nh6CxNmta8M7iGLKJX_vFtld3y_3ZzCnYURTI7FAtPrDzNu9QjRQImeRMOUeOIe3OfATpyME5Hq2GWQ_4EY1eInjKr2P2dmpVR64vRjtV-oqT77kvroggTjpO_g/s640/roddy_beechey.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="435" data-original-width="640" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-giJTI6vlXo7DtHrMYyILHziaJUnhkLaeKM4U1lVFiD0tbci-mhuTWFNIB2DPoH7Nh6CxNmta8M7iGLKJX_vFtld3y_3ZzCnYURTI7FAtPrDzNu9QjRQImeRMOUeOIe3OfATpyME5Hq2GWQ_4EY1eInjKr2P2dmpVR64vRjtV-oqT77kvroggTjpO_g/w320-h218/roddy_beechey.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Owen with the mast of the <i>Mary</i></td></tr></tbody></table>Roddy was taken to Beechey Island with a fishing party of Americans who were going on to Cresswell Bay. He & his Inuit guide Andrew were left on Beechey at 7:30am & remained there until picked up by the twin otter at 4pm. They had plenty of time to explore – Roddy noted “the spar of John Ross’ ship “Mary” sticking up at an angle.” They attempted to climb to the top of the hill to see the cairn, but it was too much for Roddy & he had to signal to Andrew “who must have thought me a proper softy”<p></p><p> I remember Roddy being particularly pleased to get the contract for <i><a href="https://www.librarything.com/work/3598323/details/71062772" target="_blank">The Fate of Franklin</a></i>, because, as he explained to us at the time, “I can now write the book that I want to write” Roddy always acknowledged the help he received from the mystical “Unseen”. He used to tell us that when faced with a huge pile of papers, an unseen presence would guide him to the right folder. He believed this to be the spirit of his great-uncle Willingham Franklin Rawnsley (1845-1927), great nephew and Godson of Sir John, who wrote <i><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/life-diaries-and-correspondence-of-jane-lady-franklin-17921875/81402A0768B5A3AA7BDF62F33840DCAE" target="_blank">The Life, Diaries and Correspondence of Jane Lady Franklin</a></i> (1923).</p><p>In spite of Willingham’s ghostly presence, Roddy’s methods of research were somewhat haphazard. His desire “not to pepper the text with little stars” led to the main criticism of his book, which was his total lack of sources, either as footnotes or a separate list. As for filing and maintaining research material afterwards, this was also hit & miss, as he explained in his memoirs: </p><p>“It had always been my habit to jettison the huge quantity of facts involved in writing any biography as quickly as possible; otherwise I might have gone mad”</p><p>Exactly how much was jettisoned is impossible to know.</p><p>After Roddy’s death I found letters from researchers amongst his papers enquiring about sources post publication, along with copies of Roddy’s replies, most of which supplied absolutely no information, albeit very politely! In spite of this, Roddy was always very accommodating towards Franklin researchers. A young Dave Woodman was given lunch & shown Roddy’s precious Staffordshire figures of Sir John & Jane Franklin, as well as being taken to the Royal Geographical Society Library. </p><p>I think Roddy was disappointed that there was no separate American edition of his book. </p><p>In a letter to author Sten Nadolny (<i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Discovery-Slowness-Sten-Nadolny/dp/1589880242/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3N3SKPLBEAP15&keywords=Nadolny+Discovery+of+Slowness&qid=1649707417&sprefix=nadolny+discovery+of+slowness%2Caps%2C69&sr=8-1" target="_blank">The Discovery of Slowness</a></i>, Viking Penguin 1987) in 1981, he wrote: </p><p></p><blockquote>“The Fate of Franklin … did well but not very well. I wasn’t nearly as successful as Jane Franklin in enlisting American support”</blockquote><p></p><p>Although he often claimed to have forgotten everything, Roddy’s interest in Franklin remained and he was pleased to be asked to give an address at the Naval Chapel, Greenwich, in 1986 to mark the bicentenary of Sir John Franklin’s birth. </p><p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5joEJmM1N2MrYXvZK2nFVe_rMRTf4OT7zYr-AEWJ73jjfaywxbbSq9xSqkoHBjTz1W243Nyjv7mGFJe3KOkwDYlArCVsxWhF0bF3om97Ak5nFLXc1eoG2VMHBe9Ub-2zgDUhAWWiE3eYiFP21NoJCMsCv_NBBHRM9ySsxYo-79aaSoAYoVFFAMiSQ-Q/s640/1%20(13).jpeg" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="640" data-original-width="435" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5joEJmM1N2MrYXvZK2nFVe_rMRTf4OT7zYr-AEWJ73jjfaywxbbSq9xSqkoHBjTz1W243Nyjv7mGFJe3KOkwDYlArCVsxWhF0bF3om97Ak5nFLXc1eoG2VMHBe9Ub-2zgDUhAWWiE3eYiFP21NoJCMsCv_NBBHRM9ySsxYo-79aaSoAYoVFFAMiSQ-Q/s320/1%20(13).jpeg" width="218" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Gilston Lodge</i></td></tr></tbody></table>One of Roddy’s greatest inherited treasures was the last known letter written by John Franklin to his wife from the Whale Fish Islands, and one of the letters in <i>May we be Spared …</i> We failed to locate the letter before Roddy died, he couldn’t remember anything about it, so there was a great hunt for it afterwards. Eventually and very appropriately, it was discovered tucked into the back of Willingham Rawnsley’s draft copy of “The Life, Diaries and Correspondence of Jane Lady Franklin”. We found it in the small attic room above the Tower Room at the top of Gilston Lodge. Accessible by ladder only, the room was boiling hot in summer, freezing cold in winter and home to numerous ladybirds who seemed to have chomped through a good deal of photocopied material but left Willingham’s draft undisturbed.<p></p><p>Visiting Roddy at his house in London (Gilston Lodge) was always an experience. Meals were eaten in the kitchen, at a small table with huge winged chairs, all taken from a Victorian railway carriage, complete with brass lamps & polished brass luggage rack above. There was always a dog, the most recent one being a shih tzu called “Lovey” who had been notoriously difficult to house train but was adored nonetheless. </p><p>There was a very particular morning routine. After breakfast, Roddy would help the dog into the back of the car (never the boot!) and we would drive to Chiswick Park for a walk, the route being entirely decided by the dog. Whichever path he chose to go down, we would duly follow. </p><p>In the 1990’s Roddy started writing his autobiography, which ended up as three large volumes. His desire for truth, warts and all, laid bare his pursuit of love for both sexes. It was a life of joyous promiscuity until he met the love of his life in 1967, an Italian man named Gian Carlo Pasqualetto. Roddy preferred London to the countryside, though he did risk the occasional visit to my parents farm. It always amused us that someone who had been stranded in far flung places & coped with all manner of tricky situations was unwilling to subject his smart London car to a ½ mile driveway of potholes, brambles & cowpats. But that was all part of Uncle Roddy’s charm!</p><p>Gilston was always full of people. There was a lodger on the top floor for many years, a couple in the basement, and of course Gian Carlo. No-one in the family ever commented on their relationship and we were left to work it out for ourselves. When his three autobiographical volumes were printed privately, Roddy was most disappointed that we weren’t more shocked by his many revelations!</p><p>Roddy appointed two Literary Executors to administer his literary estate, with the express wish that his autobiography be published after his death. “I would be most unhappy to think that any parts of this long memoir should be cut on grounds of “decency”, for those bits are essential”</p><p>The length of the combined volumes meant that inevitably, some bits were cut, but two paperback volumes <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Travels-Delight-Mr-Roderic-Owen/dp/0995718512" target="_blank">Travels of Delight</a></i> and <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Tours-Delight-Roderic-Owen/dp/0995718520" target="_blank">Tours of Delight</a> </i>edited by Nigel Hart were published by Langney Press in 2016. A more recent version which included more of the “essential” bits was edited by Emily Barrett of Little, Brown Book Group & published by Sphere in 2021 under the title <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/What-Lovely-Century-marvellous-adventures/dp/0751583022" target="_blank">Oh, What a Lovely Century</a></i>. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisuBbXvCI68BBf2E76I1bW2s9V6CvAExMu8msmeZzAJLnBVJ1DmzWMkmF2K8sFllSKa8IB59nKXMDHgnVNIzPwHqqOa-ELem3yGyjMsPkMPiWNxyrVMda6kXBhWrHST_CrWEb3h8ohjkrHYmyTV8ssn4Xm8SgdxoLUuXV9FuQe2xJChWnEnKCahn0TMA/s471/UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_c2c3.jpeg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="471" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisuBbXvCI68BBf2E76I1bW2s9V6CvAExMu8msmeZzAJLnBVJ1DmzWMkmF2K8sFllSKa8IB59nKXMDHgnVNIzPwHqqOa-ELem3yGyjMsPkMPiWNxyrVMda6kXBhWrHST_CrWEb3h8ohjkrHYmyTV8ssn4Xm8SgdxoLUuXV9FuQe2xJChWnEnKCahn0TMA/w400-h283/UNADJUSTEDNONRAW_thumb_c2c3.jpeg" width="400" /></a></div>When our own book, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0228011396" target="_blank"><i>May we be Spared to Meet on Earth: Letters of the Lost Franklin Arctic Expedition</i> </a>required funding, I approached the nearest Literary Executor, my brother Charles. Both he and his co-executor agreed that Roddy would have been delighted to help out, so a cheque was duly handed over to me, with a bust of Sir John Franklin in the background looking on approvingly!<p></p><p></p></div>Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-42884020387693991372022-03-26T13:53:00.026-07:002022-03-27T14:26:32.582-07:00Hurrah for the Dredge!<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlwnTIqOYhdM4WuTPcbrBoYkbZcpbXIqcbI3wa4DonCE36kxCy6k4BLG3R8BcHfEQtxmlnMuAfo60AahW535uZVbMwNvksuNbucS8kwIse3Col_IlKSlKOILtID6WNSB2VNopoRfgLhbQxYGHaHPntE2ddU90TaBjWFh-LbiHHpgNRAJOMjqPokdG_UA=s1256" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1256" data-original-width="700" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhlwnTIqOYhdM4WuTPcbrBoYkbZcpbXIqcbI3wa4DonCE36kxCy6k4BLG3R8BcHfEQtxmlnMuAfo60AahW535uZVbMwNvksuNbucS8kwIse3Col_IlKSlKOILtID6WNSB2VNopoRfgLhbQxYGHaHPntE2ddU90TaBjWFh-LbiHHpgNRAJOMjqPokdG_UA=w223-h400" width="223" /></a></div>Of all the many portraits of Franklin's men that emerge from our volume of letters, that of Harry Goodsir, the expedition's naturalist, is perhaps the most vivid. Only twenty-five years old when he sailed, he was already a fast-rising star in the firmament of natural history, serving as the Conservator of the Surgeons' Hall Museum at the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh, and engaged in correspondence and collaboration with many of the leading lights of the field.<p></p><div>Among his closest friends in this endeavor was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Forbes" target="_blank">Edward Forbes</a>, who emerges early in the correspondence, helping his friend secure the post as Naturalist that he'd sought with all his energy. Forbes had mentored Harry for some years, and taken him on a number of outings to dredge for marine specimens along the coasts of Scotland and Shetland. Indeed, the dredge, for Forbes and Goodsir alike, was the principal tool they used in obtaining specimens and discovering new species, a number of which still bear their names. The common marine dredge -- an example is at the left -- could be dragged along the sea-floor, whether by hand off the side of a boat, or at the end of a lengthy cable from a larger vessel. </div><div><br /></div><div>The dredge was so potent a symbol of the naturalist's trade that Forbes even wrote a song to celebrate its powers, the first stanza of which is as follows:</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div><i>Hurrah for the dredge, with its iron edge,</i></div></div></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div><i>And its mystical triangle.</i></div></div></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div><i>And its hided net with meshes set</i></div></div></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div><i>Odd fishes to entangle!</i></div></div></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjarWYXEWqfDhRB_UCGB4apy4IxcJ1LWC6aYvxzUHdSl9pIw_ygbTS25lPSuhgWkJcWnLeYCCE4gRxgnJzc1UUvjSaHOdPthgDXP4sRVSPdlbqSvvcYbLbW-1kvLQJpEuT8Hfme9DejGrCAuks1Z6AUTqwOUxCayw2DHj30SufGelDhdB_5wOa6MnxqyQ/s886/Screen%20Shot%202022-03-26%20at%204.26.54%20PM.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="678" data-original-width="886" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjarWYXEWqfDhRB_UCGB4apy4IxcJ1LWC6aYvxzUHdSl9pIw_ygbTS25lPSuhgWkJcWnLeYCCE4gRxgnJzc1UUvjSaHOdPthgDXP4sRVSPdlbqSvvcYbLbW-1kvLQJpEuT8Hfme9DejGrCAuks1Z6AUTqwOUxCayw2DHj30SufGelDhdB_5wOa6MnxqyQ/s320/Screen%20Shot%202022-03-26%20at%204.26.54%20PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>The triangle indeed, became a special symbol for Forbes; one of his letters to Harry contains two of them -- a large one at the top of the letter, and a smaller one by his signature. Forbes also made use of the triangle as a symbol of a fraternal group he organized at the University of Edinburgh, the grandly-named Universal Brotherhood of Friends of Truth. On its edges were inscribed the Greek words for wine (in moderation), love (of a brotherly kind), and learning "of a high order." Of course Harry and his brothers John and Joseph were all members.</div><div><br /></div><div>But this was all preamble, of course -- what mattered to Harry, and what will fascinate the readers of these letters, was the <i>work</i> of natural history itself. In the early months of the expedition Harry proved a man of enormous energy in this regard, and his enthusiasm was contagious among his brother officers. James Fitzjames described one such scene -- "Goodsir is catching the most extraordinary animals in a net, & is in ecstacies. Gore & Des Voeux are over the side poking with nets & long poles, with cigars in their mouths & Osmer laughing," and Harry himself expressed his delight in their shared labor: </div><div><blockquote>The Officers who were taking great interest in the collecting of specimens now became very active & during the whole day a range of them might be seen sitting in the main chains each with a net in hand dabbing away for Acalephæ. In this way my time has been fully occupied drawing and taking notes, night & day.</blockquote></div><div>Goodsir quickly earned the respect and praise of Franklin, who gave over most of the space in his "Great Cabin" for Goodsir's work. In a letter to his friend the naturalist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Brown_(botanist,_born_1773)" target="_blank">Robert Brown</a>, Franklin noted that:</div><div><blockquote>You will be glad to hear that Goodsir has collected very assiduously on the waters and from Depths, and that he has procured many things which are rare & some of them unknown. I must not however attempt to give you their unwriteable names, but trust to your learning what they are from Professor Forbes or some other of his Correspondents.</blockquote></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxGjpvgmgpCuL-OcjnRVunqOq5cr-1Q2cZG1VbkCsNg_RSWMefY3PX44B_XcfrpQp3AYIC9rnG35fWRcqhGLMQI7a5-sNFNGKeiR0LcuGP2Eu04zU_eIze6IFaQi7ve2AEcz0WZyrQyjvLNYNsV6F4_3IbSFILijiFwSNRNauWlNzt1LKy1EOBtC6Xiw/s3439/RAKE1A.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3439" data-original-width="576" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxGjpvgmgpCuL-OcjnRVunqOq5cr-1Q2cZG1VbkCsNg_RSWMefY3PX44B_XcfrpQp3AYIC9rnG35fWRcqhGLMQI7a5-sNFNGKeiR0LcuGP2Eu04zU_eIze6IFaQi7ve2AEcz0WZyrQyjvLNYNsV6F4_3IbSFILijiFwSNRNauWlNzt1LKy1EOBtC6Xiw/s320/RAKE1A.jpg" width="54" /></a></div>Not only was Goodsir collecting, he was examining his finds with great assiduousness. Le Vesconte, in a letter to his mother, declared that they were dredging up enormous varieties of "small blubbers and other marine animals and animaliculae ... strange creatures of whose habits and structure very little is known. Mr Goodsir, provided with powerful microscopes, is making collections of them accompanied by drawings and descriptions." Indeed, Harry was hard at work on a number of scientific <a href="https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/page/22069398#page/339/mode/1up" target="_blank">papers</a>, two of which he dispatched from the ship's last anchorage in Greenland in a box sent to his brother John.</div><div><br /></div><div>All this in was only the first eight weeks of the expedition, while the ships were just making their passage to Greenland -- how much more Harry must have accomplished after, we may never fully know. There are a couple of possible hints -- an Inuk named Koo-nik showed Charles Francis Hall a fragment of a jar, from a "large cask filled with glass jars" that had washed up near the shipwreck at Oot-joo-lik -- the Erebus. These may well have been specimen jars, carefully packed by Harry before the ships were deserted. There is also a curious implement (right) that was recovered from near the ships' first wintering, at Cape Riley -- it's an item of unknown function, likely fabricated on board ship -- but it's struck many who have examined it as possibly the handle of a smaller "rake" made for dragging shallow waters. If so, I think we can be fairly certain that Harry's were the hands the dragged it.</div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #ffa400;">(With thanks to Logan Zachary and Alison Freebairn for their research on</span> <a href="https://www.illuminator.blog/p/cape-riley-rake.html" target="_blank">the Cape Riley Rake</a>,<span style="color: #ffa400;"> and</span> <span style="color: #ffa400;">Peter Carney for reminding me of the Inuit testimony about the glass jars)</span></div><div><br /></div>Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-20634504346427349042022-01-31T14:59:00.006-08:002022-02-01T16:18:57.938-08:00The humor of James Fitzjames<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg8-o0p_ftIz7I9fFjO6JqvFFXzKttF3zacd3P1Mb7hzzPGcPobvtrlYkDPaCJVcWBqE5zRzzS7LjA5AcjKR4He-IrnRH-4KM_Tsnp16zgqCGp9qyx-0lEBq6QSPHDHuZagDNGIzAULBn5jJhMhGmSDunUIU93FfyiS6UT91HRSb_wYUojU5go4Wsn0Qw=s700" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="554" data-original-width="700" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEg8-o0p_ftIz7I9fFjO6JqvFFXzKttF3zacd3P1Mb7hzzPGcPobvtrlYkDPaCJVcWBqE5zRzzS7LjA5AcjKR4He-IrnRH-4KM_Tsnp16zgqCGp9qyx-0lEBq6QSPHDHuZagDNGIzAULBn5jJhMhGmSDunUIU93FfyiS6UT91HRSb_wYUojU5go4Wsn0Qw=s320" width="320" /></a></div>Among James Fitzjames's many gifts and proclivities, a weakness for what in Britain are called "puns," and in America "bad jokes" is among the most notable. And, in the world of such puns, the star of them all -- illustrated with a characteristic doodle (at left), goes thusly:<p></p><p>Q: "Why is Prince Albert’s kiss like this ship?"</p><p>A: "‘Cause its a hairy bus!"</p><p>Aside from the execrable homophony of the pun, it's curious that Fitzjames settled upon Prince Albert as its embodiment; in an age of famous whiskers, the Prince's were relatively moderate. Apparently, though, the jest hit home; in her copies of Fitzjames's correspondence with John Barrow Jr., Lady Franklin made her <i>own</i> copy of the cartoon!</p><p>His weakness for such puns is exemplified in many passages in his letters from HMS Erebus, mixed in with his jocular observations about others, as in this interchange with Osmer:</p><p></p><blockquote>Osmar has just come from on deck (midnight) and is dancing with an imaginary skipping-rope. I said to him “What a happy chap you are Osmar you are always in a good humour.” His answer is, ‘Well, sir, if I am not happy here, I d’ont know where else I could be.” – This will show you that we are really like a man shaving: <i>So-appy!</i></blockquote><i></i><p></p><p>Of course, some of the best instances of Fitzjames's jovial spirit are already well known -- his verbal portraits of his fellow officers in the "bundle of yarns" he sent to his sister-in-law, Elizabeth Coningham. These, though all meant in a light-hearted way (and meant only for private eyes), did occasionally veer into more pointed observations, using language that was omitted from the printed versions. Collins, the Second Master, he described as </p><p></p><blockquote>... the very essence of good nature, and I may say good humour - but he is mad, I am sure - for he squints to himself with a painful expression of countenance when he is thinking - (or thinking of nothing) and I can get no work out of him, though ever so willing he may be - yet he is not a bore nor a nuisance - but a nonentity.</blockquote><p></p><p>He added, though, that "we intend however to make something of him." Edward Couch got a similar mix of caricature and praise; Fitzjames calls him</p><p></p><blockquote>a little bullet-headed - blackhaired - smooth-faced lump of inanity - good humored however in his own way - writes, reads, works, draws - all quietly - is never in the way of anybody - and always ready when wanted.</blockquote><p></p><p>But doubtless the best among these portraits is his description of James Reid, complete with an imitation of his particular brogue:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>The most original character of all— rough, intelligent, unpolished, with a broad North Country accent, but not vulgar - good humored & honest hearted is Reid - a Greenland whaler - native of Aberdeen - who has commanded whaling vessels. & amuses us with his quaint remarks & descriptions of the ice - catching whales &c. - For instance - he just said to me, on my saying we should soon be off Cape Farewell at this rate, & asking if one might not generally expect a gale off it (Cape Farewell being the south Point of Greenland). “Ah! Now, Mister Gems, we’ll be having the weather fine Sir! Fine! - No ice at arl about it Sir, unless it be the bergs – arl the ice’ll be gone Sir only the bergs which I like to see. Let it come on to blow look out for a big’un. Get under his lee. and hold on to him fast Sir, fast. if he drifts – too near the land - why he grounds afore you do!” I think the idea of all the ice being gone except the icebergs, is rich beyond description.</p><div></div></blockquote><div><br /></div>Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-27548149376605597692022-01-10T06:19:00.013-08:002022-01-10T06:40:47.569-08:00Our Friend and Pitcher<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhpGCcuL6S3W9ksdOfbNVRpSWoPa_D7zGqfvgipyLgThmMgMuRLd7k0mRIy0hNDbQqBJn-th1tlaj3NwQ81xS0zCeBl1iR6bTdgvmjav-uohW1Q7ixVy2P1-auvr55scXfci3C8eB1tzmL88rsqTk-AUPMfcsUH4Xx6pBMp93JutYS_FSlxZSI_7vyAww=s3025" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3025" data-original-width="2480" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhpGCcuL6S3W9ksdOfbNVRpSWoPa_D7zGqfvgipyLgThmMgMuRLd7k0mRIy0hNDbQqBJn-th1tlaj3NwQ81xS0zCeBl1iR6bTdgvmjav-uohW1Q7ixVy2P1-auvr55scXfci3C8eB1tzmL88rsqTk-AUPMfcsUH4Xx6pBMp93JutYS_FSlxZSI_7vyAww=w328-h400" width="328" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(National Library of Australia)</td></tr></tbody></table>In the process of writing the notes for our volume of Franklin expedition letters, we learned a lot of seemingly random things: the name of a builder of cabinets for entomologists in St. Ives (<a href="https://www.ancestry.com/genealogy/records/john-james-jarman-24-2c1n7p" target="_blank">John James Jarman</a>), the fact that Franklin's friend Charles Beverly was then the head of the <a href="https://historicengland.org.uk/research/inclusive-heritage/disability-history/1050-1485/from-bethlehem-to-bedlam/" target="_blank">Bethlem Lunatic Asylum</a>, and that a "treacle posset" might be good for you if you had a cold (recipe <a href="http://www.foodsofengland.co.uk/treacleposset.htm">here</a>). But among the more surprising discoveries began with the phrase "Our friend and Pitcher." Owen Stanley, a gifted draughtsman, was in command of HMS <i>Blazer</i>, one of two steam vessels (the other being HMS <i>Rattler</i>) that towed <i>Erebus</i> and <i>Terror</i> up the eastern coast of Britain to Stromness. Stanley made a number of sketches of the ships under tow, and gave one of them this title; in a letter, James Fitzjames mentions that "Stanley calls the Terror his friend and pitcher. This turned out not simply to be a pun (on account of the towed ships "pitching" about in the rough seas), but also a reference to a song, now lost in the mists of obscurity but then well-known enough that Fitzjames at once got the reference.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>It was said to be George Washington's favorite play -- "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Poor_Soldier" target="_blank">The Poor Soldier</a>" debuted in 1783, with music by William Shield and text by John O'Keefe. It was revived on numerous occasions, but by the 1840's one of its more popular songs had become a common feature of musical revues -- it was "My Friend and Pitcher":</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><i>My friend so rare, my girl so fair!</i></div></div></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><i>With such, what mortal can be richer?</i></div></div></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><i>Give me but these, a fig for care!</i></div></div></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><i>With my sweet girl, my friend and pitcher.</i></div></div></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote></blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Of course, along with my fellow editors, I was enormously curious to hear this song -- but nary a recording of it seemed to exist. And then, to our great good fortune, we tracked down and got in touch with Dr. Sarah McCleave of Queen's University, Belfast. She had, we found, directed a student performance of "The Poor Soldier," and had recorded it on video. Making sure that she first obtained permission from the performers, she's generously agreed that we can share it here, so that everyone can hear the tune that was somewhere in the back of Stanley's and Fitzjames's mind -- so here it is! <iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='558' height='266' src='https://www.blogger.com/video.g?token=AD6v5dw5b6Vvy7QPM75QFE6p9mF5kfh-cna7NHV3QtoFOAs2UaZx91uQ8c8SoWkBhHHFjcD-NbjOHi81awUy5xVFGg' class='b-hbp-video b-uploaded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">With our deepest thanks to Dr. McCleave, and to the performers: Laoise Ní Cearnaigh (voice), Amy Wright (piano), and Vanessa Ní Gaoithín (violin). The complete lyrics can be found <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=jCgPAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA96&dq=%22My+Friend+and+Pitcher%22+lyrics&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwinnLy0saf1AhXumuAKHZ8dAmwQ6AF6BAgDEAI#v=onepage&q=%22My%20Friend%20and%20Pitcher%22%20lyrics&f=false" target="_blank">here</a>.</div><div><br /></div><p></p>Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-21364577251410244832021-11-30T13:36:00.013-08:002022-07-20T13:20:55.245-07:00May We Be Spared to Meet on Earth<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHSl4WY1Idiz49jeTYapFy18K24b2L47BKvssOI-SrpMTy-x-M_2GrBJq7sKn_ZDK6ulZm5AXgxkdF6lJwS_c4qIuB2QxbKo1QoSZdhmOOAt-Qb78ucetzv-KQAvqtlfkTtG5PS9ZZPttg/s1593/719rjUl4Q3L.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1593" data-original-width="1062" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHSl4WY1Idiz49jeTYapFy18K24b2L47BKvssOI-SrpMTy-x-M_2GrBJq7sKn_ZDK6ulZm5AXgxkdF6lJwS_c4qIuB2QxbKo1QoSZdhmOOAt-Qb78ucetzv-KQAvqtlfkTtG5PS9ZZPttg/w266-h400/719rjUl4Q3L.jpg" width="266" /></a></div>At last it can be told: after more than five years of work collecting, transcribing, and annotating -- not to mention permission-getting, proofreading, and all the other thousand-and-one tasks that go into making a book, our volume of Franklin letters will be coming out in 2022!<p></p><p>One aspect of the challenge of this collection has been that there were many more letters than we'd originally thought -- when we started, we knew of only around 150 letters, but in the end we found nearly 200-- 195 to be exact. They include every known letter written by Franklin and his men from aboard ship, as well as letters written about the expedition during its planning stages. In addition to these letters -- 173 of them -- we have twenty-two additional letters written by friends and family members of the lost men during the early years of the search, in which hope still held that they might someday be delivered.</p><p>To give context to these letters, we've also prepared a series of chronologies, showing each stage in the preparations, and all the stops along the route the ships took on their way to Greenland; these are accompanied by detailed maps showing each stage of the voyage. In a series of Appendices, we offer other documents from the voyage, including a scientific report by Harry Goodsir, Franklin's official dispatches to the Admiralty, and three letters whose authors are unknown, as their only extant versions are from their appearance in newspapers. The book is also illustrated with drawings and charts made on board, ranging from the dramatic naval sketches of Owen Stanley, the playful doodles of James Fitzjames, and an engraved plate of natural history specimens based on sketches made on board by Goodsir. To top it all off, Sir Michael Palin (<i>Erebus:The Story of a Ship</i>) has contributed a Foreword!</p><p>So far as we are aware, the majority of these letters have never appeared in print before; those few that were printed during the living memory of the expedition were often redacted to remove personal information (these parts have been restored). Some others have appeared in books about the expedition, or biographies of its key figures, but others were unknown until quite recently. Among these are the letters of James Reid, Ice-Master aboard Erebus, which turned up in the State Library of New South Wales (his family members emigrated to Australia); Henry Le Vesconte (much of his family settled in Newfoundland, in whose archives his letters ended up), and Harry Goodsir, whose correspondence has been preserved in the archives of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. Family members and descendants have also provided scarce letters, and we've also been the beneficiary of the family archive maintained by one of our editors, Mary Williamson, who is Sir John's great-great-grand-niece.</p><p><b><span style="color: #ffa400;">UPDATE</span></b>: Originally slated to be released on July 15th, the book will now be available in the first week of September (dates may vary slight by country and vendor). As the publication date grows closer, we hope also to share news of book-related events, podcasts, and other social media happenings related to its release. It's an exciting time -- we can't wait to share our discoveries -- and give everyone some hints about what's to come!</p>Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-69786909343854805642021-09-27T07:17:00.002-07:002021-09-27T07:20:33.665-07:00Reginald the (un)Lucky<p></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4BokC2rFLcWhbWL2NTDQRoopbTm91ZVy5JgxHTUFGfFnjuafmL26ak5vCt7weKNBihM78QDFR1xykjyKWaL9o6-ys-eKYfChdbc6d1z_5xbEmm0AbK3lT7GfIMxNX1mBhB5d6tpnkMB-4/s1600/LevingeR-T-J.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4BokC2rFLcWhbWL2NTDQRoopbTm91ZVy5JgxHTUFGfFnjuafmL26ak5vCt7weKNBihM78QDFR1xykjyKWaL9o6-ys-eKYfChdbc6d1z_5xbEmm0AbK3lT7GfIMxNX1mBhB5d6tpnkMB-4/s320/LevingeR-T-J.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Levinge's grave on Ascension</i></td></tr></tbody></table>Along with my colleagues Peter Carney, Gina Koellner, and Mary Williamson, I've found that the work on our forthcoming volume of letters of the Franklin expedition has produced all sorts of new insights into their undertaking. The earlier letters contain a good deal of discussion as to the selection of officers; while Sir John had the ultimate say-so, both Crozier and Fitzjames lobbied for several candidates, not all of whom ended up joining them.<div><br /></div><div>One of the more interesting of these was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reginald_Thomas_John_Levinge" target="_blank">Reginald Thomas John Levinge</a>. We first hear of him in some of Crozier's letters to his friend James Clark Ross; he asks Ross to mention his name, and notes that his family is "among the oldest in County Meath." Levinge, in fact, was heir to a baronetcy, making him one of that class of Anglo-Irish gentry for whom Crozier's father, a solicitor, often worked. The Levinge Baronetcy had been created in 1704 for Richard Levinge, then Speaker of the Irish House of Commons; the family seat was Knockdrin Castle, an impressive Gothic pile commissioned by Richard Levinge, the 6th baronet, Reginald's father.<p></p></div><div>His older brother Richard began his career in the Army, while Reginald chose the Royal Navy; his date of entry was the 7th of January 1827, making him all of fourteen years old. The first step -- as was so often the case in an era of Naval downsizing -- was the longest; he didn't obtain his first commission until 1839. 1844 found him the senior lieutenant aboard HMS <i>Volage</i>, which post he still held at the time of Crozier's letter. Indeed, that service was probably the reason that Crozier was unable to reach him to make any offer; in the end, he accepted Franklin's recommendation of Edward Little. Although the prospect would certainly have been attractive to him, Levinge would seem to have dodged a bullet, at least for the moment.</div><div><br /></div><div>In 1845, Levinge was appointed to his first command, that of HMS <i>Dolphin</i>, a small brigantine with only three guns. In November of that year, at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vuelta_de_Obligado" target="_blank">Battle of Parana</a> off the coast of Argentina, he distinguished himself by remaining in the midst of the fray; as the Naval Biographical Dictionary describes it:</div><div><blockquote>The little Dolphin on that day occupied a berth better suited to a frigate, and was so much exposed that the Commodore, the present Sir Charles Hotham, declared in his public despatch that he sometimes trembled when he beheld the shower of shot, shell, grape, and rockets flying over her. The gallantry of Mr. Levinge was in consequence rewarded with a Commander’s commission dated 18 Nov. 1845.</blockquote></div><div>It was a glorious moment, to be sure. For, although the NBD next describes him as on half-pay as though retired, he evidently remained in service, where he encountered one more opponent more wily than the Argentinians: ship-board fever. The record is confusing, as no further command is listed in any source, but apparently he was aboard HMS <i>Penelope</i> when he succumbed on 24 April, 1848. Like many others in that situation, he was laid to rest on Ascension Island, in the Georgetown Cemetery.</div><div><br /></div><div>As fate would have it, the very next day, those who would have been his colleagues and commanders stood at Victory Point on King William Island, where they removed a record left the year before, and made their poignant marginal addition:</div><div></div><blockquote><div><i>H.M. ships 'Terror' and 'Erebus' were deserted on the 22nd April, 5 leagues N.N.W. of this, having been beset since 12th September, 1846. The officers and crews, consisting of 105 souls, under the command of Captain F.R.M. Crozier, landed here in lat. 69˚ 37' 42" N., long. 98˚ 41' W. Sir John Franklin died on the 11th June, 1847 ; and the total loss by deaths in the expedition has been to this date 9 officers and 15 men.</i></div></blockquote><div>Levinge might well have been among these casualties, had he left to serve with Franklin -- and yet here he was, thousands of miles away, and death found him all the same. In a final irony, his grave at Ascension is just across the bay from "<a href="https://visionsnorth.blogspot.com/2013/08/comfort-cove.html" target="_blank">Comfort Cove</a>" -- now known as Comfortless Cove -- a cemetery whose name appears in the notorious <a href="https://visionsnorth.blogspot.com/2018/04/harry-peglar-and-his-papers.html" target="_blank">Peglar Papers</a>, and may possibly have leant its name to a gathering of graves in the Arctic.</div>Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-44401732068363161832021-06-21T09:23:00.078-07:002021-06-21T14:33:41.872-07:00Found! John Gregory<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO7zNtufblZpMNP8aLNdbdV2Hqtho-W2joBuBFPmrSodJomUrTKA6y0-v4NBKPilI8onwYPTCO4pcUX0sFc74wuj69P1Dl8HaclDNAgUltnpugZhfui3XlcvXCU9kzoxVhKXWmmx4dq6Vx/s2030/John+Gregory+christening+1806+copy.png" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="224" data-original-width="2030" height="44" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO7zNtufblZpMNP8aLNdbdV2Hqtho-W2joBuBFPmrSodJomUrTKA6y0-v4NBKPilI8onwYPTCO4pcUX0sFc74wuj69P1Dl8HaclDNAgUltnpugZhfui3XlcvXCU9kzoxVhKXWmmx4dq6Vx/w400-h44/John+Gregory+christening+1806+copy.png" width="400" /></a></div>After a considerable amount of diligent searching over several weeks, I'm very happy to be able to say that John Gregory's baptismal record -- as well as the marriage record of his parents -- have been found! The christening record was located first, with the assistance of Juliette Pochelu and Margaret Stanley. Margaret, in particular, did the valuable work of checking through all the records of 1805/1806 to be sure there were no other John Gregorys about. The result of this work was to identify a John Gregory born on 22 September 1806; his parents were listed William and Fanny (the latter a nickname for Frances). Everything matched, but there was one puzzle: the christening took place at St. Michael's, a "chapel of ease" (a place where more convenient church ceremonies could be held for those who lived at some distance from their parish church) -- and it was located in the district of Angel Meadows, the city's most notorious and squalid slum!<p></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO2IW1HU8iILai7ccp9UOtGpt-dmVqQnsp2CxlphVGMk9Ec9jGT0E7NwzS6y-lwMJPE4XMiUnqzyumCnrXz4PdTkH3WWEnXTxgbLxdy_KLMLAbuK9ri9nxdm8f79NbPpkDfzBmhZzC3lKM/s1132/jg_parents.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="536" data-original-width="1132" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO2IW1HU8iILai7ccp9UOtGpt-dmVqQnsp2CxlphVGMk9Ec9jGT0E7NwzS6y-lwMJPE4XMiUnqzyumCnrXz4PdTkH3WWEnXTxgbLxdy_KLMLAbuK9ri9nxdm8f79NbPpkDfzBmhZzC3lKM/w400-h190/jg_parents.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>It was hard to imagine our John Gregory having grown up in such adverse circumstances, but the answer to the mystery was hinted at when Juliette sent me John Gregory's parents' marriage record; it turned out they had been married at Manchester Cathedral. Then, just recently, local family history expert Gay Oliver found records of William Gregory listed as a grocer on Chapel Street in Salford, a respectable middle-class trade in a respectable mercantile town. Since he signed his own name in the register, he was certainly literate, and doubtless his son learned to read and write as well.<div><br /></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj51i3DQkQWIBaR-iocHcq4rFAaCANgZXMP91ONV4XQG4sMvJHaAajmXGW6pX4S6zwQpJ7oi5X9ppw-meVAgUi7B14Dr9G1eeqs_qLRmfrnSlal3-2cEfKR3vyLX6sfNbwWJdJUz2brxCNF/s400/joshua+brookes.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="360" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj51i3DQkQWIBaR-iocHcq4rFAaCANgZXMP91ONV4XQG4sMvJHaAajmXGW6pX4S6zwQpJ7oi5X9ppw-meVAgUi7B14Dr9G1eeqs_qLRmfrnSlal3-2cEfKR3vyLX6sfNbwWJdJUz2brxCNF/w180-h200/joshua+brookes.jpg" width="180" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Rev. Joshua Brookes</i></td></tr></tbody></table>But why marry in the Cathedral and then have your firstborn baptized in a poorer neighborhood? The answer lies in Manchester's unusual ecclesiastical arrangement: while people could have baptisms at any church, weddings could only be held at the Cathedral -- specifically its Collegiate Church -- since it was the only official parish church of the entire city of Manchester and environs. The Wardens and Fellows of the Collegiate Church jealously guarded their sole right to conduct marriages, along with their fee of three shillings sixpence. This of course meant an extraordinary number of marriages, which were often conducted in "batches," often including as many as a dozen couples; William and Fanny were in a more modest batch of four. Presiding over all these ceremonies was the well-known divine <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Brookes_(divine)" target="_blank">Joshua "Jotty" Brookes</a>, who had the duty from 1790 to his death in 1821; of him it was said that he conducted more marriages than any cleric in the history of England before or since!<div><div><div><p></p><p>All of which explains why William and Fanny were married at the Collegiate Church, but opted to have their son christened at a "chapel of ease," where the fees would be far more modest. Salford in their day was a growing, prosperous town -- it has since been entirely absorbed by the City of Manchester -- and Chapel Street was more or less its main thoroughfare. </p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPM9qUxl4GLE7smtzzIAN4yOImOl3hRHSwrcERxF_DpyXisWGKqmaXNHRwyWbXviibjdhVu9drK9XRLLYvX-YgXcZGkpd9udYkxg7-lYebYX1kcaPaGDTKCgPRr5DKfmoGf-q1DDDVj0xW/s1638/Screen+Shot+2021-06-21+at+5.18.55+PM.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="658" data-original-width="1638" height="129" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPM9qUxl4GLE7smtzzIAN4yOImOl3hRHSwrcERxF_DpyXisWGKqmaXNHRwyWbXviibjdhVu9drK9XRLLYvX-YgXcZGkpd9udYkxg7-lYebYX1kcaPaGDTKCgPRr5DKfmoGf-q1DDDVj0xW/w320-h129/Screen+Shot+2021-06-21+at+5.18.55+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>On a whim, recalling that my own ancestor -- James Clarke, my great-great-great-great-great-grandfather -- was born in Salford in 1804, two years before John Gregory -- I looked up his and his siblings' records. To my astonishment, I found that their address was also Chapel Street! It's a long street, of course, but it's wonderful to imagine my ancestor and John, only two years apart, passing each other on the pavement and perhaps knowing one another. James Clarke even had a sister, Frances, who was known as "Fanny," and also named after his mother -- and indeed we know that, John Gregory honored his mother's name by giving it to a daughter. And to add icing to the cake, James's parents were married in the same church as the Gregorys, and also by Brookes!<p></p><p>The Arctic shores of King William Island, where John Gregory's skull lay for more than a century and a half, are very far indeed from the streets of Salford -- but back in the early 1800's, my ancestor and he were almost neighbors. It certainly makes his death feel a bit more <i>personal</i> to me.</p></div></div></div></div>Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-14017785665031026702021-05-23T09:34:00.009-07:002021-06-11T06:55:02.712-07:00Who was John Gregory (Part 2 of 2)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpZndL7BW-l0g9y1dcz1HugAJeXsx48FTpBHVIFcbUtYTaP4JmXeDFQFFC1QVLBrFKApZ8o1uorP-uEHZ-veokEu1SqtCpUbQEGrC825-PEQ9xukYfwtRXeCUGi_YOyKphccg11qwKcbUB/s1438/Screen+Shot+2021-05-23+at+11.57.15+AM.png" style="margin-left: 0em; margin-right: 0em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="235" data-original-width="138" height="104" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpZndL7BW-l0g9y1dcz1HugAJeXsx48FTpBHVIFcbUtYTaP4JmXeDFQFFC1QVLBrFKApZ8o1uorP-uEHZ-veokEu1SqtCpUbQEGrC825-PEQ9xukYfwtRXeCUGi_YOyKphccg11qwKcbUB/w640-h104/Screen+Shot+2021-05-23+at+11.57.15+AM.png" width="580" /></a></div><br />While we may never know exactly which of the several candidates for John Gregory's birth is the right one, there's a good deal more we can say about him. Perhaps most significantly, he has a listing in the Royal Navy's earliest volume recording the service of engineers; so far as I know, this entry hasn't been seen or cited by anyone researching his career.<p></p><div>Unfortunately, rather than recording his age, service, and character, the entry simply contains a statement, written across both pages of the ledger: ""This Engineer was recommended by Messrs. Maudslay to serve in the Vessels employed on the Arctic Expedition having been accustomed to locomotive engines his pay to be double of that allowed to 1st class Engineers (Woolwich 6th May 1845) ... Appointed 13th May 1845 Admiralty "Erebus" 1st acting ... Apptd. 1st Class Assistant 6 June 51." So we now know for a fact what we previously only inferred -- that he was recommended by his employers, Maudlay, Sons, and Field; we also know that he was specifically appointed with double wages. I checked the ledger, and a nearly identical statement is written in the record for James Thompson, who served as engineer aboard HMS <i>Terror, </i>but as with Gregory, there are no personal details.</div><div><br /></div><div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj95Tz-HFhcNZtSJSHKZ_kaEM1RDA429I_65RmzZiWVNe90lABSKl8lVsDURWXjONyJ84GnYOHUNt57mN1GQJzHPjvo4tmXmlljKjjfIUMTGpyJfKcKQK1jYhpRS25fZEVZssyz_3YGnKeF/s1087/ely_place_1800.png" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="583" data-original-width="1087" height="215" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj95Tz-HFhcNZtSJSHKZ_kaEM1RDA429I_65RmzZiWVNe90lABSKl8lVsDURWXjONyJ84GnYOHUNt57mN1GQJzHPjvo4tmXmlljKjjfIUMTGpyJfKcKQK1jYhpRS25fZEVZssyz_3YGnKeF/w400-h215/ely_place_1800.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr></tbody></table>Yet we do know one other thing about John Gregory, thanks to the envelope containing his lone surviving letter: we know his address was 7 Ely Place, St. George's Road. The location is a fascinating one; scarely a stone's throw to the east of the old Bethlehem Lunatic Asylum (now, perhaps fittingly, the Imperial War Museum), it also had an interesting neighbor for the first few decades of the nineteenth century: a large cylindrical shed used by Henry Aston Barker and his successors to paint new paintings for the Panorama in Leicester Square -- among them depictions of three Arctic expeditions: <a href="http://w3.ric.edu/faculty/rpotter/1820.html" target="_blank">Franklin and Buchan in 1818</a>, James Ross and James Clark Ross discovery of "Boothia" (1829-33), and James Clark Ross's search for Franklin (1848-49) -- it's the circular structure just to the southwest of Ely Place. This map, made circa 1800, shows that there was, originally, a row of small flats along the eastern side of Ely Place at the time. They seem likely to have been modest, townhouse-style flats; it would have been solidly respectable --- though somewhat cramped -- housing for John's wife Hannah and their six children. It was also within walking distance of John's employers.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiljAuenGYHRO6scFKiggfMYelCGAbDMNOwdz-ow9g70l_kYnbSm2bbHNFTxAv7XnfuUlckwsTtS6aofjJW74_du0wcUwARb4ylbv6neCJQv2tbH-2fK38Ekl0Ob3Jh_9UV9w2-xmbHmpRv/s874/street+view.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="593" data-original-width="874" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiljAuenGYHRO6scFKiggfMYelCGAbDMNOwdz-ow9g70l_kYnbSm2bbHNFTxAv7XnfuUlckwsTtS6aofjJW74_du0wcUwARb4ylbv6neCJQv2tbH-2fK38Ekl0Ob3Jh_9UV9w2-xmbHmpRv/s320/street+view.png" width="320" /></a></div>These humble homes, alas, didn't stand for long; in the 1880's they were replaced by the West Square School for Boys, Girls, and Infants; its <a href="http://www.victorianschoolslondon.org.uk/Schools.htmx?schoolid=601" target="_blank">building still stands</a> and is presently the Charlotte Sharman Elementary School. The building reduced Ely Place to more of an alleyway than a street; in 1934, after the land and buildings of the nearby asylum were purchased by Viscount Rothermere (then owner of the <i>Daily Mail</i>), the land on the opposite side of Ely Place was turned into a park named after his mother, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geraldine_Mary_Harmsworth" target="_blank">Geraldine Mary Harmsworth</a>. At around this time, it seems, the name of the street was changed to match, becoming Geraldine Street -- a name which the UK gazetteer tells me is unique in Britain. This image from Google Earth shows the view looking down Geraldine Street; the school building is on the left and the park is on the other side of the brick wall on the right.</div><div><br /></div><div>I've already mentioned that John and Hannah's children were accomplished people -- several generations of them worked as engineers, with the exception of grandson <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_John_Gregory" target="_blank">Edward John Gregory</a>, who became a noted painter. As to Hannah herself, she seems to have remained in the neighborhood, if not at the same address; in the 1870 census she appears to be living with her in-laws on South Street (modern Greenwich South Street) in Lambeth, but at her her death in 1873 she was apparently resident in the parish of St. Saviour's Southwark, a bit further north and closer to the river. I still hope to locate her grave, and will update this post if I do!</div>Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3873756940955163469.post-5987348545931089362021-05-22T13:02:00.015-07:002021-05-24T12:37:30.822-07:00Who was John Gregory? (Part 1 of 2)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiInz9CqRzcVj3dcS3xFVcWZJ2mMUXG3YRjZ4PHBKupdtq_uE4WgWxT2zA0eANJ83hypIozTKFL1UKgAKkHpkEE5995wKlaBORT76aYKJwJkvEHaKQp7DmNkWz7iidSRjR2yBxD-vUmB-fD/s2048/IMG_4955.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1213" data-original-width="2048" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiInz9CqRzcVj3dcS3xFVcWZJ2mMUXG3YRjZ4PHBKupdtq_uE4WgWxT2zA0eANJ83hypIozTKFL1UKgAKkHpkEE5995wKlaBORT76aYKJwJkvEHaKQp7DmNkWz7iidSRjR2yBxD-vUmB-fD/w400-h238/IMG_4955.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>As the news spreads around the world that John Gregory of HMS <i>Erebus</i> has become the first member of the Franklin expedition whose remains have been identified using DNA, many personal details about him have emerged. One them, or so it seems, was the fact that he married Hannah Wilson on the 14th of April, 1823 at St. Michael's church in Ashton-under-Lyne, part of Manchester. And yet, the original record, now presented here thanks to parish sleuth Margaret Stanley, raises questions. For one, Hannah's name was originally recorded as "Ann," though in the top of the entry this has ben corrected. Second and more puzzling is the fact that neither John nor Hannah signed their name, instead making only a "mark" -- an "x" -- which generally in this context means the named person was illiterate. And yet, as we know from John's letter to Hannah sent back from the ships, he was at that time a literate man, one in fact with particularly neat and fine handwriting, a man who used words such as "circumference" and "jocosely." I find it nearly impossible to imagine that he was illiterate in 1823.<div><br /></div><div>There are other possible reasons for the "x," however. Sometimes, if the minister simply <a href="https://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic=755980.0" target="_blank">assumed that the parties weren't literate</a>, he may have instructed the bride and groom to simply "make a mark." Gregory, after all, was still a teenager, and since his and Hannah's first child was born a mere two months later, the circumstances of their appearance before the Curate may have not been particularly comfortable. Indeed, our best evidence that <i>this</i> John Gregory is the right one comes from the ages and dates of this children. As compiled by Juliette Pochelu (based on Margaret Stanley's researches), they were:</div><div><br /></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div>1. Edward, baptised June 15th 1823. Family resident in 'Town' </div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div>2. Emanuel, baptised on August 21th 1825. Resident Stalybridge.</div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div>3. Frances, baptised June 17th 1827. Resident Stalybridge.</div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div>4. James, baptised on Decemer 20th 1829. Resident Stalybridge.</div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div>5. Rebecca, baptised September 23rd 1832. Resident : Town - so back in Ashton.</div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div>6. William, baptised October 12th 1834. Resident Manchester.</div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div>7. Eliza, baptised on July 9th 1837</div></div></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px; text-align: left;"><div><div>8. John Jr., said to be 7 months old in the census, and the only one born at that address.</div></div></blockquote></blockquote><p>A ninth child, Frederick, was born on December 7, 1844 and baptized the following January; by the that time the family were living at Ely Place -- he was doubtless <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2021/05/04/kiss-baby-for-me-first-use-of-dna-to-link-franklin-expedition-sailor-to-descendant.html?rf" target="_blank">the baby John asked his wife to kiss!</a> From the 1841 census, we can see that not all of these children were still living: Edward (18, though the census rounds this down to 15), Frances (13), James (11), William (6), and Eliza (4); Emmanuel and Rebecca <a href="http://www.lan-opc.org.uk/Manchester/Chorlton-on-Medlock/cemetery/burials_1833.html?fbclid=IwAR2gv6mW66IJ9DSLJEhqrMm6Bbnls10pN-pVee7DM30BBSNVDxieVjjaKDs" target="_blank">died in childhood</a>; the future fate of John Jr. is less certain.</p><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhRvW1Wl6qmnIbpggL9P9qyn0rsl2d3MB_CgUB2OouwjYyudaCA3SkrpG3yqjAqp5D19A9WRSef9KU0vX0U5U56v37EcgjxxuqXGkCeACzyevgVYV2Ki43LqKsmI2tcUpurTJOB8QHh2Zs/s722/Screen+Shot+2021-05-22+at+3.54.31+PM.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="357" data-original-width="722" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhRvW1Wl6qmnIbpggL9P9qyn0rsl2d3MB_CgUB2OouwjYyudaCA3SkrpG3yqjAqp5D19A9WRSef9KU0vX0U5U56v37EcgjxxuqXGkCeACzyevgVYV2Ki43LqKsmI2tcUpurTJOB8QHh2Zs/s320/Screen+Shot+2021-05-22+at+3.54.31+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>We get a lively picture of this growing family, but some questions still remain. In the 1841 census, Hannah (once again, as she was in the marriage register, mis-recorded as Anna) is listed as 40 years of age and John as 35. Apparently, it was the practice of census takers then to round down to the nearest 5-year interval, which would explain Hannah being listed as 40 when she was probably 41. John, for the same reason, could have been any age shy of 40 and been listed as 35. We have her christening record from 1801, but with John, his name being far more common, we have a crowd of candidates. The most likely seems to be a man born in 1805 and christened at St. Michaels (not the later parish church of St. Michael and All Angels, but a small "chapel of ease" in Manchester); his parents were Ralph and Elizabeth. According to research by Michael King Macdona, both Ralph and Elizabeth signed their names. There is also a candidate from 1798; his parents were Mary and Joseph, and his father's profession was given as "cordwainer" (shoemaker). </div><div><br /></div><div>And there are others: the noted historian of the non-officer classes of Franklin's men, Ralph Lloyd-Jones, has located a candidate born in 1790, although Stenton et., al. say they have a record of the death of that same person from 1791. Mr. Macdona has also located a candidate born in Eccles (on the other side of Manchester), baptized in January of 1802. In order, these candidates would give John Gregory an age in 1841 of 51, 43, 40, or 36; only the last of these matches the census record (and census records could be wrong, of course). </div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdVbol3uONkUP5Bilek0LYtHcMHjmXqKcyploA4SOqG7NxzGZ0BMtfdE2tXA2cXmlSmVlJAUcr9UN1q8nPFKXlXydO7yd3hLZSG2cOS7F_Tbqv6EZntNTYj9WY8QVyhRd-abzPcfN6h4Ze/s801/Screen+Shot+2021-05-22+at+4.01.39+PM.png" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="359" data-original-width="801" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdVbol3uONkUP5Bilek0LYtHcMHjmXqKcyploA4SOqG7NxzGZ0BMtfdE2tXA2cXmlSmVlJAUcr9UN1q8nPFKXlXydO7yd3hLZSG2cOS7F_Tbqv6EZntNTYj9WY8QVyhRd-abzPcfN6h4Ze/s320/Screen+Shot+2021-05-22+at+4.01.39+PM.png" width="320" /></a></div>By any measure, Mr. Gregory, who would have been at least 40 when the ships sailed, was among the older members of the expedition; Franklin was 59, and Crozier (the next oldest) 48; Osmer the Purser was 46; Thomas Blanky and James Reid, the Ice Masters were 45 and 44 respectively. One would think that, having already had a career as an engineer and a family, John Gregory would have left behind some more definite trace -- and in my next installment, I've more to tell! Certainly, though, he was well-remembered by his family, so much so that when his grandson, the artist and Royal Academician Edward John Gregory died in 1909, his grandfather's service in the Franklin expedition nearly as much space as the deceased himself!</div><div><br /></div><div><b><span style="color: #e69138;">UPDATE 5/24/21: </span></b>Juliette has located a <a href="https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/157896730/john-gregory?fbclid=IwAR3M2Xg0EQpFGPKdGvkfv4M0QCN9IasyMR8qaDjdZnL8nvCWkqiqOa7t8N0" target="_blank">likely grave</a> for the Eccles candidate, who I think we can now eliminate.</div>Russell Potterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11023313195827310776noreply@blogger.com1