John Franklin

And what is your favourite part of the collection?

My favourite part of the collection would have to be the Franklin Collection and this is John Franklin who was an explorer of the Arctic Oceans.

He was looking for a passage to at the northern part of the hemisphere, a shorter route between England and China,

basically.

And there is a letter that was written by Lord Franklin, and we have the original of that message to the Admiralty to say where they were and approximately where they were.

I

don't think he really knew at the time, but that is one of my favorite parts of the collection.

Sir John Franklin was a British naval officer, and he took two ships, the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror, to try to find a passage to China.

Britain has done more than other nations in the cause of discovery within the Arctic Circle.

The last and greatest of our Arctic heroes perished there, the famous Sir John Franklin.

Were I writing a history of those regions, I would have much to say of other countries as well as of our own.

But such is not my object in this book.

It is a matter for regret that the agents of the company stood quietly by without in any way attempting to prevent the massacre.

The inhuman conduct of Hearne and his companions brought no punishment on them, but it was the cause of great suffering to Franklin and his men when they afterwards visited that region.

The route by the North Pole which Robert Thorne, merchant of Bristol, had suggested many years before, once more received royal attention, and George III was pleased to give every encouragement to countenance such an undertaking and every assistance that could contribute to its success.

Two of the stoutest ships in the Navy, the Racehorse and the Carcass, under the command of Captain Phipps, sailed from the Nore in seventeen seventy-three on the first royal expedition to the Arctic Seas.

Two of them were to attempt to reach the Pacific by proceeding in a northerly direction across the pole, while the other two were to find a western route through Baffin Bay.

Never before had so many experienced officers of the Royal Navy taken part in such an expedition.

The Dorothea and the Trent were commanded by Captain Buchan and Lieutenant John Franklin, who afterwards became the greatest of Arctic explorers.

Both of these officers had seen much service, and Buchan had spent several years on the coast of Newfoundland, while Franklin had been through the recent wars and had fought under Nelson at Trafalgar.

Greenwich, England, the heart of a nation built on sea power and home to a museum with secrets dark and strange.

The mark of Horatio Nelson's deadly assassin, the magical bullet of Captain William Bly, The final hours of Sir John Franklin's Arctic expedition and a deadly device that foiled an empire.

Secrets hidden in plain sight inside the National Maritime Museum Greenwich.

Just east of central London, on the banks of the Thames River, is Greenwich, home to the National Maritime Museum.

The museum's collection celebrates Great Britain's proud seafaring heritage, which dates back almost a thousand years.

Through exploration, innovation, and conflict, the Royal Navy led Britain's conquest of the seas and became a breeding ground for heroes, from the famous to the infamous.

From Sir John Franklin to William Bly, captain of the ill-fated bounty, but none was greater than this man, Admiral Horatio Nelson.

Horatio Nelson was born in 1758.

In all the tales of daring courage and patient, persistent bravery, two qualities which stand foremost in the admiration of every English-speaking boy, the tales of the fearless explorers who have faced the terrors and the mystery of the frozen regions are without a rival.

Just as it was the record of his struggles to penetrate into the unknown regions of the ice-bound Northwest Passage, which made the name of Sir John Franklin famous fifty years ago, so it is today that the names of Nansen, Peary, and Andrei are household words by reason of the hardihood and indomitable courage shown in their efforts to reach the great unknown pole.

Who is there who has not lingered over the adventures of the Fram, that sturdy Norseman's vessel, which combined in herself all the best qualities of previous Arctic ships, and comported herself, whether in the ice or out of it, with a dignity that told of her proud descent and prouder destiny? Who has not marvelled at the sublime audacity of the gallant little band of three who challenged undying fame by seeking the pole in the balloon, abandoning all the old-fashioned notions about ice ships and dog sledges, and trusting themselves and their enterprise to the four winds of heaven and the latest scientific scheme? Who has not been thrilled with the daring shown by Nansen and his trusty lieutenant when, leaving ship and comrades with their lives literally in their hands, they made their historic dash and emerged with what was then the record of Farthest North, and which has since been beaten by only twenty miles? Full of pluck and daring are all the records of polar exploration, and in addition to that attraction there is something else about the subject which fascinates and holds the imagination.

There is a mystery about the cold, white, silent region, the mystery of as yet an unsolved problem, the mystery of being one of the few spots on the world's surface where the foot of adventurous man has never trodden.

Just as these incidents occur today, so did they occur a thousand years ago.

And if to modern ears they sound weird and awe-inspiring, what must they have been to the men who succeeded Pythias? Nor does this exhaust the marvel of this bleak and fascinating region.

In the long winter nights, the aurora borealis glares and blazes in the sky, roaring and flashing about the ship enough to frighten a fellow, as an old quartermaster who was with Sir F.L. McClintock in his search for Sir John Franklin used to tell the midshipmen.

In the prolonged sunset and sunrise, the sky is ablaze with colour, and when the sun has gone, the rarefied atmosphere produces many curious astronomical figures.

I assumed it might be Shakespeare, but it's Tennyson.

Yeah, it was an epitaph for John Franklin, actually.

Okay.

So that's where that's borrowed from.