Lost in time: this 1895 painting by William Smith, at the National Maritime Museum, shows the imagined last moments of John Franklin’s Arctic expedition from 1849. But even today, mystery still shrouds the final fate of the two Royal Navy ships
SUNDAY SUPPLEMENT: In 1849, the Admiralty sent out two ships, the Erebus and Terror, on a mission to find the North West Passage. The mystery of what happened to the ships of the Franklin Expedition has never been entirely solved. Even Lord Nelson’s godson couldn’t find them.
By DAVID MORGAN
A tale which carries its readers from the icy stretches of the Canadian Arctic, involves a senior officer in the Royal Navy and the search for mysteriously missing ships, and reaches into The Oval Office in the White House might just be the setting of a new thriller novel, even the next Bond movie. Add in a Croydon connection, and this true-life story becomes the tale of a local resident.
Admiral Robert Dawes Aldrich lived in Keston House on Tavistock Road in his retirement years. His name lives on through his exploits during his naval in the Arctic. Bathurst Island, where he explored extensively and where he was first to map the coastline, is one of the Queen Elizabeth Islands which make up the Arctic Archipelago. Uninhabited, it is now part of the Qausuittuq National Park and home to an abundance of Arctic wildlife.
Little did Aldrich think, at the age of 15 when he joined the Royal Navy in 1824, that one day he would be part of an expedition exploring an area of the world previously known only to the native Inuit population.
Crew register: How Lt Aldrich was sent on a mission to try to discover what happened to the Franklin Expedition
Aldrich rose through the ranks of the navy, becoming lieutenant in 1842. Eight years later, he was the second in command on a special mission on HMS Resolute. The ship’s captain was Horatio Thomas Austin, the godson of the Royal Navy’s greatest commander.
HMS Resolute, together with HMS Assistance, HMS Pioneer and HMS Intrepid, set sail in 1850 for the North West Passage on a special mission ordered by the Admiralty: Rescue Sir John Franklin!
For centuries, ever since Columbus had first sailed to the Americas, European powers had sought a short-cut to Asia, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, through the icy, often hostile waters north of Canada, known as the North West Passage.
By 1845, much of a route had been surveyed and identified, and a well-resourced Admiralty expedition led by experienced explorer Sir John Franklin was dispatched to find, confirm and complete that final part of the North West Passage.
Franklin sailed from London with his ships the Erebus and Terror. They were last sighted in the waters near Baffin Island later that year. After which, they vanished without trace.
Sailing into Arctic waters in the middle of the 19th Century was a difficult and hazardous trip. Aldrich’s ship, the Resolute, was an adapted and strengthened barque, originally named the Ptarmigan. Its refitting included the installation of strong timbers, an internal heating system and a figurehead in the shape of a polar bear.
This was not to be just a search of the waters where Franklin’s expedition was thought to have sailed. They had a brief to search the inlets and islands along the route, trying to find any evidence of land fall or camp by Franklin and his sailors.
Search as they might, Austin and Aldrich never did locate Franklin, although they did find traces of their first winter camp at Beechey Island. It would not be until 2014 that the wreck of the Erebus was discovered and investigators were able to determine its fate.
Doomed voyage: from what we know now, more than 150 years later, of what became of the Sir John Franklin expedition
On his 1850 expedition, Aldrich was given his first exploratory task in the autumn. He was to take a party of men and sledges and lay out a series of supply dumps, in readiness for a longer mission the following year, which they hoped would find out more about Franklin’s expedition.
This involved packing the sledges with essential supplies like food, fuel and equipment, and then hauling them over the often treacherous terrain. Every so often, the team would set up a supply depot, and dig into the ice to set up a tent store for provisions to be used on a planned exploration route the following year.
Aldrich’s group travelled across Sumerville Island and Lowther Island for three days and nights from October 2 to October 5.
Passing the time: the ships’ crews created their own newspapers to record their activities
Arctic winter was on its way, and Aldrich and the crews of the four ships found themselves iced in, unable to move. The crews had plenty of time on their hands, when they weren’t on watch, conducting scientific experiments or carrying out observations.
Exactly what the crews did to pass their time in the frozen north was recorded in the on-ship newspapers which they produced. These were handwritten and produced on a weekly or monthly basis. At one time there as many as five different titles in production.
The main one was the Illustrated Arctic News. A facsimile of six editions of the paper is held in the Royal Museums Greenwich. The editors of the papers told of events which took place on board ship, such as their Christmas Day celebration.
On March 4th 1851, Aldrich sang a song of his own composition to the tune Hearts of Oak, at the conclusion of a Royal Arctic Theatre presentation held on HMS Assurance.
Paraselene painting: Aldrich’s artwork captured a rare Arctic phenomenon
The newspaper also showed the drawing talents of various crew members, including Aldrich. He produced an accomplished watercolour entitled Paraselene, showing a rare Arctic phenomenon. A paraselene, or moon dog, is formed by moonlight passing through ice crystals in the upper atmosphere.
The paraselene, occurring in the Arctic darkness, was certainly something which impressed the icebound observers. Aldrich also included in his painting some ice sculptures, one of which was Britannia, several figures walking on the frozen sea and the ships of Austin’s expedition. This painting is now in the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.
Aldrich was out in the frozen landscape for a much longer exploration in spring 1851. After weeks of 24-hour darkness, the days had started to get longer. Starting on April 15, he and his little party ventured up the coast of Bathurst Island for 62 days. They travelled 550 miles, averaging almost 10 miles a day. This was an amazing feat of endurance.
Icebound: the Resolute was abandoned when its crew could not be certain it would survive an Arctic winter in the ice
Their mapping of the small islands was the first time they had been properly charted.
Aldrich returned to Britain later that year. He was awarded the Arctic Medal in 1857. He would venture no more to the Arctic. It was certainly not the end of his navy career, however.
From March 1852, he became the inspecting officer of the coastguard, first at Banff and then at Sheerness. In 1856, he was appointed second in command of HMS Waterloo, before holding similar appointments on the Queen Charlotte and the Madagascar.
He retired, aged 52, in 1860 with the rank of captain and a naval pension of half-pay, formally part of Britain’s naval reserve. He was promoted to rear admiral in 1876, to vice admiral in 1881 and to admiral in 1887.
The involvement of HMS Resolute in the search for Franklin was far from over, though. She set sail in April 1852, this time under the overall command of Sir Edward Belcher. Off Baffin Island, the expedition split their forces. Resolute, under Captain Kellett, set up their winter headquarters at Melville Island. In the summer of 1853 numerous trips were made to try to establish what had happened to Franklin, but again with no success.
Resolute was caught in ice near Dealy Island in late summer of that year. Unable to free herself, the crew stowed away the sails and rigging and allowed the ship to drift in the ice.
In the spring of 1854, Belcher ordered Captain Henry Kellett and the crew to abandon their ship and leave it to its icy fate.
Fine service: Queen Victoria presented the Resolute Desk to the US President, and its has been in use ever since. Until, that is, Donald Trump
It must have come as a surprise to many, then, when in September 1855 an American whaling ship found the Resolute drifting in an icefloe some 1,200 miles from where it was abandoned. Like the Marie Celeste, everything was still in its place. The only thing missing was the crew.
James Buddington, the skipper of the vessel which found her, took some men on board and managed to sail the Resolute back to New London in Connecticut, landing on Christmas Eve. Once they had arrived in port, the question was raised of what to do with her.
Senator James Mason of Virginia found a solution. He presented the American Congress with a bill to restore Resolute and return her to Britain “as a gesture of national courtesy”.
Resolute arrived back in Cowes in December 1856. After it was retired from naval service in 1879, the timbers were salvaged, from which some of them were used to make a desk, which Queen Victoria presented to President Rutherford B Hayes in 1880 as a gesture of thanks for the rescue and return of the Resolute.
American presidents have used the “Resolute Desk” in some capacity ever since. John F Kennedy, famously, had a photograph taken of his son playing under the desk while he was working through papers on the top of it.
Impressive record: Admiral Aldrich’s 1891 obituary
Donald Trump decided to take the Resolute Desk out of the Oval Office shortly after starting his second presidential term, to have it “lightly refinished”.
Admiral Aldrich lived out his retirement in Tavistock Road. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He died in June 1891, aged 82.
Aldrich’s family involvement in Arctic exploration continued. The admiral’s nephew, Pelham Aldrich commanded the western sledge party on Ellesmere Island, as part of the 1875 British Arctic Exhibition to reach the North Pole. The northernmost tip of Ellesmere is called Cape Aldrich in his honour.
David Morgan, pictured right, is a former Croydon headteacher, now the volunteer education officer at Croydon Minster who offers tours or illustrated talks on the history around the Minster for local community groups
If you would like a group tour of Croydon Minster or want to book a school visit, then ring the Minster Office on 020 688 8104 or go to the website on www.croydonminster.org and use the contact page
Some previous articles by David Morgan:
- Courtroom drama in 1892: ‘An Infuriated Bear Shot in Croydon’
- Croydon’s man of adventure who founded New Zealand town
- Veteran of Albuera and New Orleans who policed the Cape
- Enter the Almshouses and travel back in time four centuries
- The church fire that consumed a thousand years of history
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There is a road called Aldrich Crescent in New Addington. Many of the roads there are named after famous Tudors (back in the 1500s), but according to Wikipedia (never totally reliable ?!) “Aldrich Crescent in New Addington is named after the Aldrich family, who were prominent landowners in the area during the 19th century. The family owned much of the land where New Addington was later developed.”
Is this the same family as Admiral Aldrich, another branch of the same family, or a completely different Aldrich mob in Croydon at the same time?