Read more
Sir John Franklin's Arctic expedition departed England in 1845 with two Royal Navy bomb vessels, 129 men and three years' worth of provisions. None were seen again until nearly a decade later, when their bleached bones, broken instruments, books, papers and personal effects began to be recovered on Canada's King William Island. These relics have since had a life of their own--photographed, analyzed, cataloged and displayed in glass cases in London.
This book gives a definitive history of their preservation and exhibition from the Victorian era to the present, richly illustrated with period engravings and photographs, many never before published. Appendices provide the first comprehensive accounting of all expedition relics recovered prior to the 2014 discovery of Franklin's ship HMS Erebus.
List of contents
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Abbreviations Used viii
Editor's Preface
Original Introduction
1.¿The Material Biography of Relics: A Physical and Spiritual Relationship
2.¿The Continued Search for Relics, 1851-1854
3.¿Examining the Relics
4.¿The Material and Social Value of the Relics
5.¿The Relics: Their Past, Present and Future
Conclusion
Appendices:
deleteA: Locations of Relics
deleteB: Relics at the National Maritime Museum
deleteC: Relics with Ownership Ascribed
deleteD: Relics Recorded and Left by McClintock, 1859
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index 227
About the author
Garth Walpole was born in 1961 in Hobart, Tasmania. He earned a degree in history and archaeology at the University of Bangor in Wales, where his fascination with the lost Arctic expedition of Sir John Franklin began. He died April 7, 2015, not long after completing this book.
