The Franklin Expedition
Overview
On May 19th 1845, Captain John Franklin set sail on a voyage to find the North-West passage, a sailing route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific across the top of North America. The discovery of the fabled passage represented one of the greatest challenges of the time. 134 officers and crew members left aboard two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. ¹ Five of them were discharged at the Whalefish Islands in Disko Bay (Greenland) due to sickness, before the ships went onward. 129 men were left, none of them returned. This was a major news story in Britain at the time. The last Europeans to see them alive were whalers in Baffin Bay. ² As the expedition was expected to last three years and there was still no word from them by 1848, rescue parties were sent.
In 1850, the graves of three of the men were found on Beechey Island, where the two ships wintered in 1845-1846. ³
The graves of John Torrington, John Hartnell and William Braine - Beechey Is. The Winter Quarters 1845-6 of the Expedition under Sir John Franklin, PAG7997, 1850, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
John Torrington, John Hartnell and William Braine all died in 1846, they were the subjects of investigations. John Torrington's autopsy revealed the most likely cause of death to be pneumonia, with evidence of possible tuberculosis, while John Hartnell and William Braine both had probably died of tuberculosis. ⁴ Relics were also found at the site, but no written note.
In April 1859, another mission found a note on King William Island. Hidden in a stone cairn on Victory Point, this single note contained two messages : ⁵
The first message, written in May 1847 reported that the two ships had spent their winter at Beechey Island, where the three graves were found, as the ships had been trapped by ice since September 1846. The second message was added in April 1848 and was written on the margins of the page. It was written by Captain Crozier from HMS Terror and Commander Fitzjames from Erebus, it reported that Captain John Franklin had died, alongside 9 officers and 15 men. The surviving men had also deserted the ships and were heading south.
As more expeditions were sent to find what happened to the men, relics and Inuit testimonies depicted a grim picture. Franklin's men had been dragging life-boats on sledges with them as they progressed down the western coast of King William Island. Many skeletal remains were found as the men seemingly perished one by one in their endeavor, some showed evidence of scurvy. ⁶ Reports from 1855 already concluded that some of the remains found exhibited signs of cannibalism. These remains are still studied today, leading to identifications of the men and drawing a narrative concerning their fate ⁷In 2014 and 2016, the wrecks of HMS Erebus & HMS Terror were found, thanks to the collaboration of Parks Canada and Inuit. ⁸ These discoveries raises of many questions than they answer, as the ships were discovered far away from where they were left by the men in 1848.
Lieutenant Edward Little
Assuming he was still alive at that time, he may have taken a more significant role after Sir John Franklin and James Fitzjames's deaths on 11 June 1847 and in May or June 1848. ¹⁰
