Franklin, John (1786 - 1847)

Summary

John Franklin was a naval officer and experienced polar explorer, and colonial governor. After joining the Royal Navy in 1800, he saw service at the Battle of Trafalgar and was a midshipman in H.M.S. Investigator to New Holland 1801 - 1804 under the command of Matthew Flinders. Franklin's subsequent naval career was interspersed with periods ashore on half pay. Between 1819 and 1828 Franklin led two explorations of large areas of northern Canada. The first, tortuous, journey was to chart the north coast between Hudson Bay and the Coppermine River. During the second expedition of 1824 to 1828 he travelled widely in the region of the Great Slave and Great Bear Lakes, and followed the Mackenzie River to its mouth. In 1837 Franklin was appointed Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania). In this role he walked a delicate line between the penal purpose of the colony and the push for reform by the free colonists. Despite enjoying considerable popular support, Franklin was subject to a hostile local press. He found himself increasingly at odds with the colonial Secretary, John Montague: this acrimony led to Franklin's recall in 1843. Franklin's scientific interests found expression in Tasmania with his promotion of the Tasmanian Natural History Society and its journal, the Tasmanian journal of natural history, and the establishment of the Rossbank Observatory. In 1845 he was appointed to command an expedition to the Canadian Arctic seeking a passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean (the Northwest Passage). The vessels used for the expedition were H.M.S. Erebus and H.M.S. Terror. Both became stuck in ice and ultimately sank.

Details

"Heroic he once might have appreared, but when he fetched up in the island colony he was nearly fifty, corpulent and prematurely aged, seen as 'a nice old gentleman' - none too bright, well meaning and unassuming. His second wife, Lady Jane Franklin, was five years younger and cut from a different cloth. Clever, energetic and audacious, she was fiercely ambitious for her husband, if not for herself. . . . The colonists had never encountered a lady like her, certainly not a governor's wife who gathered around her a coterie of interesting young men." (Pybus 2024 page 140)

Chronology

1801

Career event - Joined the Royal Navy

1801 - 1804

Career position - Midshipman, H.M.S. Investigator (under command of Matthew Flinders 1801 - 1903)

1819 - 1822

Career position - Leader of the expedition to chart the north coast of Canada from Hudson Bay to the Coppermine River

1822

Career event - Promoted to Captain

1822 - 1847

Award - Fellow, The Royal Society, London (FRS)

1824 - 1828

Career position - Leader of the expedition to explore northern Canada and follow the Mackenzie River to its mouth

1829

Award - Gold Medal, Geographical Society of Paris

1829

Award - Knight bachelor (Kt)

1830 - 1833

Career position - Commanded H.M.S. Rainbow during Greek was of independence

1836

Award - Knight Commander of the Royal Guelphic Order

1837 - 1843

Career position - Lieutenant Governor, Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania)

1838

Career event - Promoter and co-founder, Tasmanian Natural History Society

1840

Career event - Co-founder, Rossbank Observatory

May 1845 - June 1847

Career position - Leader of expedition to discover the Northwest Passage

Related entries

Archival resources

Archives Office of Tasmania

• John Franklin - Records, 1800 - 1847; Archives Office of Tasmania. Details

Hobart Reading Room

• Notice on meeting to farewell Sir John Franklin, with early history of the Society, 1843, SD_ILS:545773; Hobart Reading Room. Details

Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales

• John Franklin - Records, 1845 - 1893, ML MSS 1465; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• John Franklin - Records, 1830 - 1853; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• John Franklin - Records, 1842, ML DOC 918; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• John Franklin - Records, 1837, ML DOC 919; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Paul Edmund de Strzelecki - Records, 1837 - 1851, A3355, 4059; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details
• Ronald Campbell Gunn - Records, c. 1833 - c. 1854, A 316; Mitchell and Dixson Libraries Manuscripts Collection, State Library of New South Wales. Details

National Library of Australia Manuscript Collection

• John Franklin - Records, 1837 - 1853, G2486; National Library of Australia Manuscript Collection. Details
• John Franklin - Records, 1837 - 1859, MS 114; National Library of Australia Manuscript Collection. Details

Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Community History Collection

• John Franklin - Records, 1800 - 1847; Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Community History Collection. Details

Royal Society of Tasmania

• John Franklin - Records, 1837 - 1868; Royal Society of Tasmania. Details

State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection

• John Franklin - Records, 1800 - 1847; State Library of Victoria, Australian Manuscripts Collection. Details

Published resources

Books

• Burn, D., Narrative of the overland journey of Sir John and Lady Franklin and party from Hobart Town to Macquarie Harbour, 1842: edited with introduction, notes and commentary by George Mackaness (Sydney: D. S. Ford, printers, 1955), 72 pp. Details
• Burns, T. E.; and Skemp, J. R., Van Diemen's Land correspondents: letters from R. C. Gunn, R. W. Lawrence, Jorgen Jorgenson, Sir John Franklin and others to Sir William Hooker, 1827 - 1849 (Launceston: Queen Victoria Museum, 1961), 142 pp. Details
• Calder, James, Recollections of Sir John and Lady Franklin in Tasmania (Adelaide: Sullivan’s Cove, 1984), 76 pp. Details
• Fitzpatrick, Kathleen, Sir John Franklin in Tasmania 1847-1843 (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1949). Details
• Franklin, J., A narrative of some passages in the history of Van Diemen's Land during the last three years of Sir John Franklin's administration in the Colony (Hobart: Platypus Publishers, 1967), 158 pp. Details
• Franklin, John, Some private correspondence of Sir John and Lady Franklin (Tasmania, 1837 - 1845): with an introd., notes and commentary by George Mackaness, 2 vols (Sydney: D. S. Ford printers, 1947). Details
• Lambert, Andrew, Franklin: tragic hero of polar navigation (London: Faber and Faber, 2009), 428 pp. Details
• Pybus, Cassandra, A very secret trade: the dark story of gentlemen collectors in Tasmania (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 2024), 318 pp. https://www.allenandunwin.com/browse/book/Cassandra-Pybus-Very-Secret-Trade-9781761066344. Pages 140-144, 150-151, 155, 159-160, 166-168, 171, 173, 175, 176-177, 181-182. Details

Book Sections

• Fitzpatrick, Kathleen, 'Franklin, Sir John (1786-1847), rear admiral, Arctic explorer and lieutenant-governor' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 1: 1788 - 1850 A-H, Douglas Pike, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1966), pp. 412-415. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A010380b.htm. Details
• Russell, Penny, 'Paradise Lost: Sir John and Lady Franklin' in For Richer, For Poorer: Early Colonial Marriages, Penny Russell, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1994). Details
• Woodward, Frances J., 'Franklin, Lady Jane (1791-1875), protagonist, governor's lady and patron of science' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 1: 1788 - 1850 A-H, Douglas Pike, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1966), pp. 411-412. https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/franklin-lady-jane-2065. Details

Journal Articles

• Barr, William, 'Searching for Franklin from Australia: William Parker Snow's Initiative of 1853', Polar Record, 33 (185) (1997), 145-150. Details
• Farrer, Keith Thomas Henry, 'Whence came the lead in Franklin's crewmen', Food Science and Technology Today, 3 (2) (1989), 93-94. Details
• Farrer, Keith Thomas Henry, 'Lead in the last Franklin expedition', Journal of Archaeological Science, 20 (1993), 399-409. Details
• Farrer, Keith Thomas Henry, 'Goldner's preserved meat and the last Franklin expedition', Food Science and Technology Today, 15 (1) (2000), 20-24. Details
• Horowitz, B. Z., 'Polar poisons: did botulism doom the Franklin expedition?', Clinical toxicology, 41 (2003), 841-7. Details

Resources

• Wikidata, http://www.wikidata.org/entity/Q2655. Details
• VIAF - Virtual International Authority File, OCLC, https://viaf.org/viaf/75094584. Details
• 'Franklin, John (1786-1847)', Trove, National Library of Australia, 2009, https://nla.gov.au/nla.party-826477. Details

See also

• Cave, Eleanor Catherine, 'Flora Tasmaniae: Tasmanian Naturalists and Imperial Botany, 1829-1860', PhD thesis, University of Tasmania, 2012, 385 pp. Details
• Featherstone, Guy, 'Bonwick, James (1817-1906), teacher' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 3: 1851 - 1890 A-C, Douglas Pike, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1969), pp. 190-182. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A030182b.htm. Details
• Fleming, Fergus, Barrow's boys (London: Granta Books, 1889), 489 pp. Details
• McConville, Andrew, In search of the last continent: Australia and early Antarctic exploration (Melbourne: Australian Scholarly Publishing, 2022), 227 pp. Details
• Savours, Ann and McConnell, Anita, 'The History of the Rossbank Observatory, Tasmania', Annals of Science, 39 (1982), 527-564. Details
• Serle, Percival, Dictionary of Australian biography (Sydney: Angus & Robertson, 1949). Details
• West, Francis, 'Stanley, Owen (1811-1850), naval officer' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 2: 1788 - 1850 I-Z, Douglas Pike, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1967), pp. 470-471. http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A020436b.htm. Details
• Williams, Glyn, Arctic labyrinth: the quest for the Northwest Passage (London: Allen Lane, 2009), 440 pp. Details