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#John Irving #the Terror

The Arctic Medal and clasp posthumously awarded to Lieutenant John Irving of the Franklin expedition, from the 2014 auction listing of Irving memorabilia. The lot included a copy of Benjamin Bell's Memorial Sketch of Lieut. John Irving, R.N. (Edinburgh, 1881) with an inscription "To John Irving Scott Moncrieff in memory of his grand uncle Lieut. John Irving R.N. 25th April 1893."

‘Whatever happens it is the will of God. I hope you do not think me so weak as to labour under any presentiment of evil; but remember this is no common voyage … Two years is a long time without any tidings, and perhaps we may be three years at least. Do not give up on us if you hear nothing.’

John Irving to his sister-in-law Kate, Woolwich, 18 April 1845

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Tributes to Harry Goodsir: 1)A lady under the pen-name of Penelope reminisces about Harry Goodsir 45 years after he left on his fateful expedition in the Derby Daily Telegraph, 3 October 1892. "Harry Goodsir sometimes comes back in my dreams as the young fellow I knew forty-five years ago."

2)A quarter of a century after receiving one of Harry's final scientific papers from the expedition, William Jerdan posted a letter regarding his dear friend Harry in the Leisure Hour, "who stood so high in the estimation of all who knew him."

3)In the 1880s John Anderson remembers his last meeting with Harry...what they had for dinner in St Andrews and walking 4 miles with Harry on his return route and then parting, "to meet no more on earth." Then penned the poem The Explorer's Grave for his book 'Sprigs of Heather'.

4)And of course there is that ethereal sketch Edward Forbes made of Harry the night before he went off on his adventure...

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Happy Birthday Harry!

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#Harry Goodsir

New photos of FE member buried at Greenwich

From the amazing Franklin Expedition researcher Logan Zachary's latest newsletter (subscribe to it if you haven't yet!): Historic England has added detailed photos of the human remains buried at the Franklin Expedition memorial at Greenwich. They were first thought to belong to Henry Le Vesconte, but they are now considered to be Harry Goodsir's.

See more photos here.

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#the Terror

THERE HE IS! 🥰 The second Fitzjames daguerreotype of which we only had a picture. Coming up for auction soon at Sotheby's. Oh please let these daguerreotypes be acquired by a public institution. 🙏 You will be able to see the daguerreotypes at Sotheby's London from 15 until 20 September!

Also we finally get to see Francis Crozier's lost daguerreotype, of which we also only had a picture.

See the other daguerreotypes here: https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2023/travel-atlas-maps-photographs/studio-of-richard-beard-a-set-of-14-daguerreotypes

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#Maritime Slang

Sailor Nicknames

Sew Sew Boys - Sailors who have a special talent in sewing Jack of the Dust- Purser Mate Jack Nasty Face- a low ranking sailor Landlubber- a landsman who has no knowledge of the sea Fireship - a prostitute with a venereal disease Spouter - a Whaler Blubber Hunter- a Whaler Admiral of the Narrow Seas- a Sailor who threw up in the lap of a comrade Vice Admiral of the Narrow Seas- a Sailor who has managed to pee on a mate’s shoes under the table. Long Tailed Beggar- a Cat Lubber- a lumbering, awkward fellow a stout, clumsy oaf who struggles with seamanship Bone Polisher- a cat of nine tails Bugs- a dirty slovenly sailor Bully Boys- an American sailor Jack Tar - a British sailor Cook`s warrant - an operation that ends in amputation The Croaker- a Surgeon The Doctor - a cook Davy Jones natural children - pirates, smugglers, scamps, scalawags and rovers Hands- Crewmembers Jimmy the One - the first Lieutenant in the Royal Navy Johnny Hawbuck- an officer who dressed like a dandy at sea Landshark - A Lawyer Limey- another name for a british sailor Jollies - A Royal Marine Leatherneck - A Royal Marine Devil Dog - A Royal Marine Lobster - A Royal Marine Old Salt - a veteran sailor Manxman - a sailor from the Isle of Man Nip cheese - the Purser

to be continued….

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#Maritime shenanigans!

The Ganges shortening sail in Rio de Janeiro Harbour by Samuel Hood Inglefield, c. 1848 (NMM).

In his memoir Twenty Years Before the Mast, American sailor Charles Erskine described a scene in the busy harbour of Rio de Janeiro in the late 1830s. Warships of all nations occupied the bay, and a British man-o-war taunted Erskine and his mates with a War of 1812 ditty, leading to musical retaliation:

Among other vessels there was the English line-of-battleship Thunderer of ninety guns and a crew of one thousand men. They usually sang on board of her every night, and always wound up at eight bells by singing the first or second part of "The Chesapeake and Shannon," which was very aggravating to American patriotism. [...]

One night Commander Wilkes happened to appear on deck just as they were singing the obnoxious song, which seemed to annoy him extremely. I will do him the justice to say that, with all his faults, he was a true American, and loved dearly the old flag. One of the crew went aft and asked him if we might return that song next Saturday evening by giving them "The Parliaments of England." "Yes, my man,” was the reply, "and give it to them in thunderous tones, with plenty of Yankee lightning.” Fifty of the best singers began to practice, and on the next Saturday evening, just as the crew on board of the Thunderer had finished singing their usual song, our chorus commenced.

HMS Thunderer (1831), firing a salute in an 1842 drawing by Ebenezer Landells (Wikimedia Commons). Not pictured: her musical accompaniment.

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#ship parts

Glossary of Nautical Terms - as used in the late 18th and early 19th centuries

Aft: at or towards the stern or after part of a ship, the opposite of bow.

Aloft: overhead, or above.

Athwart: across.

Bank: a rising ground in the sea, differing from a shoal, because not rocky but composed of sand, mud or gravel.

Becalmed: to halt through lack of wind.

Bow: the foremost end or part of a ship, the opposite of stern.

Bowsprit: a large mast or piece of timber which stands out from the bow of a ship.

Burthen: the older term used to express a ship's tonnage or carrying capacity. It was based on the number of tuns of wine that a ship could carry in her holds, the total number giving her burthen.

Chase, to: to pursue a vessel in wartime with the aim of capturing, acquiring information from her, or destroying.

Colours: the name by which the national flag flown by a ship at sea is known, used to determine nationality.

Dead reckoning: a system of navigation where the position of a ship is calculated without the use of any astronomical observation whatever.

Fair wind: a wind favourable to the direction a ship is sailing.

Fathom: a measure of six feet, used to divide the lead (or sounding) lines in measuring the depth of water; and to calculate in the length of cables, rigging, etc.

Fore: the forward part.

Hail, to: to call to another ship.

Helm: the instrument by which the ship is steered, and includes both the wheel and the tiller, as one general term.

Jib: a triangular sail set by sailing ships on the boom which runs out from the bowsprit.

Jury-mast: a temporary makeshift mast erected to replace a mast that has been disabled or carried away.

Jury-rudder: a makeshift arrangement to give a ship the ability to to steer when she has lost her rudder.

Keel: the lowest and principal timber of a wooden ship - the single strongest member of the ship's frame.

Knot: the nautical measure of speed, one knot being a speed of one nautical mile (6,080 feet) per hour. As a measure of speed the term is always knots, and never knots an hour.

Landfall: the discovery of the land.

Land-locked: sheltered all round by the land, so that there is no view of the sea.

Lead: an instrument for discovering the depth of water, attached to a lead-line, which is marked at certain distances to measure the fathoms.

Lee: the side of a ship, promontory, or other object away from the wind; that side sheltered from the wind. It is the opposite side to windward.

Lee shore: a coastline on to which the wind blows directly - consequently it can be dangerous as the wind tends to force the sailing ship down on it.

Leeward: with the wind; towards the point to which the wind blows.

Letter of Marque: a commission issued in Britain by the Lord High Admiral or Commissioners of the Admiralty authorizing the commander of a privately owned ship to cruise in search of enemy merchant vessels. The letter of marque described the ship, her owners and officers, the amount of surety which had been deposited and stressed the necessity of having all prize vessels or goods seized condemned and valued at a Vice Admiralty Court for the payment of 'prize money'.

Lie-to: to prevent a vessel from making progress through the water - achieved by reducing sail in a gale. The objective is to keep the vessel in such a position, with the wind on the bow, as to ensure that heavy seas do not break aboard.

The Line (or 'Crossing the Line') Sailing across the Equator. Nautical tradition where seamen celebrate the crossing of the equator by dressing up and acting out a visit by King Neptune. Those who have not previously crossed the line are summoned to the court of Neptune for trial, followed by a ritual ducking (in a bathing tub of seawater) and sometimes lathered and roughly shaved.

Mainsail: the principal sail of a sailing vessel.

Mizzen (or mizen): the name for the third, aftermost, mast of a square-rigged sailing ship or of a three-masted schooner.

Muster: to assemble the crew of a ship on deck and call through the list of names to establish who is present and accounted for.

Muster-book: the book kept on board a vessel in which was entered the names of all men serving in the ship, with the dates of their entry and final discharge from the crew. It was the basis on which victuals were issued and payment made for services performed on board.

Pintle: a vertical metal pin attached to the leading edge of the rudder; it is fitted into the metal ring or 'gudgeon' bolted to the sternpost of a vessel. This provides the means for hinging the rudder on the sternpost and allows a rudder to be swung or turned as desired (by use of the tiller); where necessary (ie. when the rudder needs to be removed or repaired) the pintles can be unshipped quickly and the rudder detached.

Port: the left-hand side of a vessel as seen from the stern; also a harbour or haven.

Privateer: a privately owned vessel armed with guns which operated in time of war against the trading vessels of an enemy nation. Each privateer was given a a 'letter of marque' which was regarded as a commission to seize any enemy shipping as a 'prize'. The name 'privateer' has come to refer to both the ship and the men who sailed in her.

Prize: name used to describe an enemy vessel captured at sea by a ship of war or a privateer; also used to describe a contraband cargo taken from a merchant ship. A 'prize court' would then determine the validity of capture of ships and goods and authorize their disposal. 'Prize' in British naval history always acted as considerable incentive to recruitment with many men tempted to join the navy in anticipation of quick riches.

Prize Court: Captured ships were to be brought before prize courts where it was decided whether the vessel was legal prize; if so, the whole value was divided among the owners and the crew of the ship.

Prize Money: the net proceeds of the sale of enemy shipping and property captured at sea - these proceeds were distributed to the captors on a sliding scale from highest rank to lowest seaman.

Road or Roadstead: a stretch of sheltered water near land where ships may ride at anchor in all but very heavy weather; often rendered as 'roads', and does not refer to the streets of a particular port city but rather its anchorage, as in 'St Helens Roads', the designated anchorage for shipping located between St. Helens (Isle of Wight) and Portsmouth, or 'Funchal Roads' at the island of Madeira. (see Elizabeth Macquarie's 1809 Journal).

Quarter: (1)the direction from which the wind was blowing, particularly if it looked like remaining there for some time; (2)the two after parts of the ship - strictly speaking a ship's port or starbord quarter was a bearing 45° from the stern.

Ship: from the Old English scip, the generic name for sea-going vessels (as opposed to boats). Originally ships were personified as masculine but by the sixteenth century almost universally expressed as as feminine.

Shoal: a bank or reef, an area of shallow water dangerous to navigation. Sounding: the of operation of determioning the depth of the sea, and the quality of the ground, by means of a lead and line, sunk from the ship to the bottom, where some of the sediment or sand adheres to the tallow in the hollow base of the lead.

Sound: (1) to try the depth of the water; (2) a deep bay.

Sounding: ascertaining the depth of the sea by means of a lead and line, sunk from a ship to the bottom.

Soundings: those parts of the ocean not far from the shore where the depth is about 80 to 100 fathoms.

Spar: a general term for any wooden support used in the rigging of a ship - includes all masts, yards, booms, gaffs etc.

Squall: a sudden gust of wind of considerable strength.

Starboard: the right-hand side of a vessel as seen from the stern.

Stern: after-part of a ship or boat.

Tack: the nautical manouevre of bringing a sailing vessel on to another bearing by bringing the wind round the bow; during this manouevre the vessel is said to be 'coming about'.

Tide of Flood: the flow of the tidal stream as it rises from the ending of the period of slack water at low tide to the start of the period of slack water at high tide; its period is approximately six hours.

Trade Winds: steady regular winds that blow in a belt approximately 30 N. and 30 S of the equator. In the North Atlantic the trades blow consistently all year round, from the north-east; in the South Atlantic they blow from the south-east, converging just north of the equator. The meeting of the trade winds just north of the equator created the infamous 'doldrums', where sailing ships could be becalmed for days or weeks waiting for a wind to carry them back into the trades.They were known as trade winds because of their regularity, thereby assisting sailing vessels in reaching their markets to carry out trade.

Under way: the description of a ship as soon as she begins to move under canvas power after her anchor has been raised from the bottom; also written as 'under weigh.'

Voyage: a journey by sea. It usually includes the outward and homeward trips, which are called passages.

Watch: (1) one of the seven divisions of the nautical day; (2) one of two divisions of the seamen forming the ship's company.

Wear: the nautical manouevre of bringing a sailing vessel on to another tack by bringing the wind around the stern.

Weather: in a nautical sense (rather than a meteorological) this is the phrase used by seamen to describe anything that lies to windward. Consequently, a coastline that lies to windward of a ship is a weather shore; the side of a ship that faces the wind when it is under way is said to be the weather side a ship, etc.

Weigh: to haul up.

Weigh anchor: the raising of the anchor so that the ship is no longer secured to the sea or river bottom.

Windward: the weather side, or that direction from which the wind blows. It is the opposite side to leeward.

Yard: (1) a large wooden spar crossing the masts of a sailing ship horizontally or diagonally, from which a sail is set. (2) a shortened form of the word 'dockyard, in which vessels are built or repaired.

Sources: JEANS, Peter D. Ship to Shore: a dictionary of everyday words and phrases derived from the sea. Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 1993.

The Oxford Companion to Ships & the Sea. (ed.) Peter Kemp. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976.

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#the Terror

The Third Note

"In the handwriting of Captn. Fitzjames, signed by Sir J. Franklin." Note by John Barrow jr.

Written on 30 June 1845, the form had been tossed overboard and retrieved on 14 July 1849 off the coast of Greenland. It had been written too early into the expedition to tell anything about its fate.

[ADM 7/189, The National Archives. Pics by me.]

Me in the archive:

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#the Terror

Stained glass window in St Mary’s Church, Banbury - photo by Rex Harris

Pictured here is HMS Terror stuck in the ice. The image was taken from the Arctic reports and notebook of Admiral Sir George Back during his Arctic expedition in 1836. It was commissioned by Henry Back, the admiral’s brother and vicar of the church in c. 1860.

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Brig La Grace

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HMS Victory

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The terror

CAPTAIN JOHN FRANKLIN'S LOST EXPEDITION

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Publicity

The local Abbots Langley news magazine interviewed me about my Fitzjames research! I wish they'd used the Fitzjames pics I sent them instead of just a photo of me (and the printed version of the magazine has me on the cover 🫣). It's not about me, it's about him! Anyway, I hope that this article will introduce some new people to Fitzjames. I'm still working on the proposal for the memorial, because that will have to include the design and costs.

BELOVED! 😭💕

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#women at sea

Women at Sea

Women at sea or women in general in connection with the navy are unfortunately still a rather neglected topic, and so Margarette Lincoln, herself an author on this topic, once looked at the literature on this subject.  Here is the list she compiled and which I would like to pass on to you, as there are a few that deal with this topic.

- Bold in her Breeches: Women Pirates Across the Ages by Jo Stanley (1995) - The basic work that covers all women pirates through the centuries and geographically from Ireland to China.

- Female Tars: Women aboard Ship in the Age of Sail by Suzanne J. Stark ( 1996) - She deals in her book with three types of women on board, the whores, the officers’ wives and women in male disguise.

- Heroines and Harlots: Women at sea in the great age of sail, by David Cordingly (2001) - he looked at the archive material and was able to confirm that there were a very large number of women in England and America who went to sea. He also tries to include the role of men.

-British Sea Power: Representing the Navy, 1750-1815 by Margarette Lincoln (2002) - here she included a whole chapter devoted to how women saw the Navy. She continued this with her next book - Naval Wives and Mistresses (2007) and now tried to include letters and the social role.

- Naval Families : War and Duty in Britain. 1740- 1820 by Ellen Gills (2016) - Here individual families and their fates are highlighted.

- Enterprising Women and Shipping in the 19th century, by Helen Doe (2009) - She stays ashore in her book and highlights the maritime business in women’s hands.

- Sailors and Traders: a Maritime History of the Pacific Peoples, by Alastair Couper ( 2009) - Explores the sexual relationships of European sailors and indigenous South Sea island women in the 18th and 19th centuries. It also makes a connection to the whalers and the recruitment of almost exclusively female crews in the 20th century.

- From Cabin Boys to Captains- 250 years of women at sea, by Jo Stanley (2016) - Here she now reports on the life and work of female sailors.

- Pirate Women: The Princesses, Prostitutes and Privateers who ruled the seven seas, by Laura Sook Duncombe (2017) attempts to shed light on the lives of female pirates.

- Women and english piracy, 1540- 1720 : Partners and Victims of Crime, by John Appleby (2013) - moves away from the romanticised lives of female pirates and shows how women supported pirates and even started their own businesses. He also tried to dispel some of the myths.

This small list shows how little work has been done on this topic, although there are some small articles on individuals that have gradually appeared in naval history magazines. There is still a lot to be done in this area and more research is needed.

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#the Terror

Franklin Expedition Service Records

I have finished transcribing the service records I used for my Franklin Careers project. You can find all the transcriptions on my Franklin Expedition page:

ADM 196/4/181. “Capt Sir John Franklin.”

ADM 196/4/220. “Com Jas. Fitzjames.”

ADM 196/4/373. “Lieut. Graham Gore.”

ADM 196/5/124. “Lieut. Edward Little.”

ADM 196/8/548. “John Smart Peddie.”

ADM 196/8/579. “Stephen Samuel Stanley.”

ADM 196/68/548. “Chas H. Osmer.”

Note that some of these are only officer service records. The midshipman service records are elsewhere.

These service records are all property of The National Archives, Kew, and were obtained from the digital service collection Royal Navy officers’ service records 1756-1931. Transcriptions published under the Open Government Licence (OGL) per The National Archives image reproduction guidelines.

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#The Terror

We made it! This year's fest was filled with space AUs, parasitic friends (and non-friends), sicko art pieces, slutty JFJs, and indulgent hairstyles. Thank you to everyone for participating!

The AO3 collection will remain open for a week for any stragglers who wish to catch up. Thank you again and until next time...