John Franklin

Sir John Franklin (16 April 1786 – 11 June 1847) was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. After serving in wars against Napoleonic France and the United States, he led two expeditions into the Canadian Arctic and through the islands of the Arctic Archipelago, in 1819 and 1825, and served as Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land from 1839 to 1843. During his third and final expedition, an attempt to traverse the Northwest Passage in 1845, Franklin's ships became icebound off King William Island in what is now Nunavut, where he died in June 1847. The icebound ships were abandoned ten months later and the entire crew died, from causes such as starvation, hypothermia, and scurvy.

Biography

Early life

Franklin was born in Spilsby, Lincolnshire, on , the ninth of twelve children born to Hannah Weekes and Willingham Franklin. His father was a merchant descended from a line of country gentlemen while his mother was the daughter of a farmer. One of his brothers later entered the legal profession and eventually became a judge in Madras; another joined the East India Company; while a sister, Sarah, was the mother of Emily Tennyson, wife of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. John Franklin must have been affected by an obvious desire to better his social and economic position, given that his elder brothers struggled, sometimes successfully and sometimes not, to establish themselves in a wide variety of careers.

Educated at King Edward VI Grammar School in Louth, he soon became interested in a career at sea. His father, who intended for Franklin to enter the church or become a businessman, was initially opposed but was reluctantly convinced to allow him to go on a trial voyage on a merchant ship when he was aged 12. His experience of seafaring only confirmed his interest in a career at sea, so in March 1800, Franklin's father secured him a Royal Navy appointment on .

Commanded by Captain Lawford, the ''Polyphemus'' carried 64 guns and, at the time of Franklin's appointment, was still at sea. He did not join the vessel until the autumn of 1800. Initially serving as a first class volunteer, Franklin soon saw action in the Battle of Copenhagen in which the ''Polyphemus'' participated as part of Horatio Nelson's squadron. An expedition to the coast of Australia aboard , commanded by Captain Matthew Flinders, followed, with Franklin now a midshipman. He accompanied Captain Nathaniel Dance on the , frightening off Admiral Charles de Durand-Linois at the Battle of Pulo Aura in the South China Sea on . He was present at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 aboard . During the War of 1812 against the United States, Franklin, now a lieutenant, served aboard and was wounded during the Battle of Lake Borgne in December 1814, just prior to the decisive U.S. victory at the Battle of New Orleans one month later.

Franklin commanded in 1818 on a journey from London to Spitzbergen, now Svalbard. The overall expedition was commanded by Captain David Buchan on HMS ''Dorothea''.

1819: Coppermine expedition

In 1819, Franklin was chosen to lead the Coppermine expedition overland from Hudson Bay to chart the north coast of Canada eastwards from the mouth of the Coppermine River. On his 1819 expedition, Franklin fell into the Hayes River at Robinson Falls and was rescued by a member of his expedition about downstream.

Between 1819 and 1822, he lost 11 of the 20 men in his party. Most died of starvation or exhaustion, but there were also at least one murder and suggestions of cannibalism. The survivors were forced to eat lichen