In 1850, John Marshall was taken on as mate on the Lady Franklin, commanded by William Penny, on a search which was headline news, to find the missing explorer Sir John Franklin and his expedition in search of the North-West passage.
Ruairidh Greig writes:
My Great Great Great Grandfather John Marshall was born in 1804 at
Peterhead in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. Like many of his generation in
the town he grew up to be a seafarer, occupied mainly in the whaling
trade. His qualities as a seamen led him to often being employed as
mate, second in command, and on at last one occasion, as Captain of a
whaling ship. In 1850, he was taken on as mate on the Lady Franklin,
commanded by William Penny, on a search which was headline news, to
find the missing explorer Sir John Franklin and his expedition in
search of the North-West passage.
John Franklin was born at Spilsby in 1786, one of twelve children
to a long-established farming family. Although destined for a career
in the clergy, he instead opted for the Royal Navy and served on the
Bellerophon at the battle of Trafalgar. One of his earliest voyages,
as a midshipman, was to sail with Matthew Flinders on the
Investigator, commissioned to explore the coasts of Australia. This
left him with a taste for adventure and exploration which led him to a
number of difficult and dangerous expeditions in inhospitable parts of
the globe.
His main interest focused on the discovery of the
North-West passage, the sea-route through the ice-fields of northern
Canada which could dramatically shorten the journey to India and the
Far East. Following a failed naval expedition led by Captain Ross in
1818, Franklin was appointed to lead an overland expedition in 1819.
Surviving great hardships, hunger and privation, as well as conflicts
with Eskimos, he was forced to turn back and returned to base in 1823.
A second overland expedition met a similar fate in 1826. These
expeditions attracted the attention of the newspapers and the general
public and he became known, with factual justification, as “the
man who ate his boots”.
Although expeditions continued under other Captains,
Franklin’s career, after periods of inactive service, led him
into the colonial service in 1837, as Governor of Van Dieman’s
Land, soon to be re-named Tasmania. He remained as Governor until
1843, when he was recalled, the subject of unfounded accusations by a
subordinate. After efforts to clear his name, the opportunity arose,
in 1845, to lead a new Admiralty expedition to the Arctic. Although 59
years old, he readily accepted the commission and his reputation with
the public was fully restored.
With two ships, the Erebus under Captain Fitzjames and the Terror,
under Captain Crozier, the first sailing ships in Arctic waters
equipped with auxiliary screws and engines, he set sail in June 1845.
The last anyone heard of them was when they left their supply ship at
Whalefish Islands, off the coast of Greenland. Two years passed with
no news. Despite reassurances from experienced explorers like Sir John
Ross, Lady Franklin suspected trouble and launched herself into the
first of what were to be many attempts to find her missing husband and
his expedition. It was the rescue expedition of 1850 financed by the
Admiralty and Lady Franklin herself, that John Marshall joined as mate
on the eponymous main vessel, the brig Lady Franklin.
The 1850/51 expedition, with the Lady Franklin and the smaller
Sophia was led by an Aberdeen whaling ship master, Captain William
Penny. As Mate, it was John Marshall’s duty to keep the
ship’s log. He records being towed out of harbour, probably
Peterhead, on Saturday 13th April 1850. He records the essential work
of the ship until its return, to Woolwich dockyard, on Friday
September 19th 1851, having over-wintered in the Arctic. When the
vessels reached the ice, the experienced Marshall took on the role of
Icemaster, guiding them through the treacherous pack-ice. When they
could no longer navigate the dangerous waters, the expedition set up
camp, and sledge parties were sent out in search of any traces of
Franklin.
John Marshall accompanied the ship’s surgeon, Dr
Goodsir. Together they searched the shores of Cornwallis and Bathurst
Islands. The chart on the report to the Admiralty records Goodsir and
Marshall’s Farthest at 75° 36’ N, 98° 3’ W, now
identified as the northern tip of Little Cornwallis Island. The report
records the difficulties they encountered, including dealing with
polar bears, but of Franklin they found no trace, except for a piece
of weatherworn English elm wood, which could possibly have come from a
wrecked ship. As they pursued their search, the various parties left
cairns containing dried provisions, in case any of Franklin’s
men happened to have survived.
Captain Penny wanted to stay a second winter to continue the search
into the Wellington Channel, but Captains Austin and Ommanney, of
other ships in the search were less enthusiastic. Bearing in mind his
responsibility to his overall commander, Austin, and to his crew, he
ordered the Lady Franklin and the Sophia to weigh anchor and return
home to England. John Marshall records the details of the journey in
his logbook. He was later one of the expedition members who testified
to the committee appointed to Lords Commissioners to the Admiralty. A
copy of the three volumes of evidence is in the possession of Wynkie
Higginbottom, one of his Great Great Granddaughters. The Franklin
rescue expedition was one of his last voyages. He died at Peterhead on
the 8th March 1857, aged 53.
John Marshall’s eldest son, John, was, like his father, a
seaman, serving in the whaling trade- as mate, and as spectioneer and
harpooner. On one memorable occasion, according to family legend, he
was able to save his ice-bound ship by locating one of the cairns,
whose latitude and longitude his Father had made him memorise. The
ship was the Queen, commanded by Captain George Brown. John Marshall
junior was signed on the Queen from 31st March 1865 until 14th October
1866.
The “Peterhead Sentinel” (19th October 1866) records
that the ship was “beset off Charles Island” in the
Cumberland Straits, for nearly 11 months, “during which time
they saw no fish, nor had they any communication with any of the other
ships”. The food left in the cairns was dried meat (pemmican)
and dried pressed vegetables. Despite the rift between Helen Urquhart,
my Great Grandmother, and her father, John Marshall, she kept the
letter given to him by Captain Brown authorising the search for the
cache of food. She also kept some of the dried pressed vegetables,
shown in the accompanying photograph. This is still in the possession
of my Uncle, David Miller of Grimsby.
Further Reading:
Sir John Franklin and the Romance of the North-West Passage,
Partridge & Co.London,
Arctic Breakthrough, Paul Nanton, William Kimber & Co,
London, 1970
The Search for the North-West Passage, Ann Savours, Chatham
Publishing, London, 1999
Ruairidh Greig
10th November 2008
