The Jamboree Bag

Here's Sir John Franklin , posing for his 1845 daguerreotype, with a bad case of the flu . He's proudly w earing his Hanoverian Order of Merit . He recei ved this in 1833 when he was made a Knight Commander of the Guelphic Order of Hanover. Franklin took his me dal w i th him into the Arctic – presumably to wear at the formal receptions he would be expected to attend in Asia, after sailing through the Northwest passage .  The story of th is meda l is also the story of how the fate of the Franklin Expedition was discovered. Sir John's medal is displayed along with the other relics in Death in the Ice. You can have a close look at it , and read its resonant Latin motto 'Nec Aspera Terrent' – Hardships Do Not Deter Us.   In 1854, while the Navy was still searching fruitlessly for Franklin in the northern Arctic, hundreds of miles to the south, on the Canadian mainland, Dr John Rae solved the mystery. He was on a journey of exploration...

Continuing our journey through Death in the Ice , we leave the Victorian drawing room and enter a big wide dark space, with relics disp la yed in pools of light . We're back in the Arctic, with the search parties looking for traces of the Franklin E x pedition . The search began in 1848, and there would be around thirty expeditions over the next decade.  Among the disp la ys, I was struck by a n 1850 Inuktitut phrase book , instructing Naval offic ers how to ask the Inuit the following questions : Ha ve you seen any large ships lately? How many moons since? Were the ships fishing for whales? Did they give you any presents? Are you quite sure you are telling the truth?   Wh ich way di d they go when they sailed away?   In 185 0, several British and US se arch ships converged o n Beechey Island, where they had the first breakthrough . They found the camp where Franklin spent his first winter in the A rctic .   The ...

I've been up to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich to see this summer's big Franklin Expedition exhibition, Death in the Ice .  They don't let you take photos in the exhibition, which gives me the excuse to illustrate th is review with scenes from a painting I made in 2013 , on a door in Bom – Bane's restaurant , Brighton. If you go, I recommend calling in first at the nearby chapel in the Old Royal Naval College , to see the Franklin Memorial . It's a powerful image of high hopes , on the left , crushed by the Arctic Ice, on the right. The memorial is also the t om b of one of the only tw o men of the expedition to brought back to Britain ( the other is in Edinburgh ). From 2011 is otope analysis of his teeth, he's thought to be Harry Goodsir, the brilliant young naturalist who served as Assistant Sur geon on HMS Erebus. His skull also matches the daguerreotype of Good sir taken on board Erebus before the expedi...