Before setting off to find the Northwest Passage, Sir John Franklin spent six years as Lieutenant Governor in Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania). He had a pretty tough time there; in the 1840s there was a financial depression and conflict over a new convict labour system. Franklin’s informal style was not popular with some senior civil servants. He struggled as a politician and was recalled to Britain in 1843.
Franklin accepted the Arctic expedition to try and redeem his reputation, but, according to a note found by one of the search parties, died in 1847, while the ships were stuck in the ice. He was 61 years old.
The Northwest Passage wasn’t successfully navigated until 1903, when Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen made it through. Eight years later, he was first to reach the South Pole. Today, tourists can cruise the route and climate change is transforming it; in 2007, for the first time in recorded history, there was almost no sea ice in the passage at all.
You can visit a statue of Franklin that was erected in Franklin Square, Hobart, in 1865. The inscription includes a quote from Tennyson’s poem for the explorer:
Not here! The white north hath thy bones and thou
Heroic sailor soul
Art passing on thine happier voyage now
Toward no earthly pole
A lovable Newfoundland dog called Neptune and a pesky monkey called Jacko sailed on HMS Erebus. They were gifts from Franklin’s wife. The crew made little clothes for the monkey.