Sir Edward Augustus Inglefield (March 27, 1820 – September 4, 1894) was a Royal Naval officer who led one of the searches for the missing Arctic explorer John Franklin during the 1850s. In doing so, his expedition charted previously unexplored areas along the northern Canadian coastline, including Baffin Bay, Smith Sound and Lancaster Sound. He was also the inventor of the marine hydraulic steering gear and anchor design that bears his name.
First voyage to the Arctic edit
Ingelfield set out from Britain on his search in July 1852, commanding Lady Franklin's private steamer Isabel [1], seven years after Franklin had left on his ill-fated search for the fabled Northwest Passage. Once Inglefield had reached the Arctic, a search and survey of Greenland's west coast was made; Ellesmere Island was resighted and named in honour of the president of the Royal Geographical Society; Smith Sound was penetrated further than any known records; Jones Sound was also searched; and a landing was made at Beechey Island in Lancaster Sound. No sign, however, of Franklin's expedition was found. Finally, before the onset of winter forced Inglefield to turn homewards, the expedition searched and charted much of Baffin Island's eastern coast.
Despite finding no traces of the Franklin expedition, Inglefield was fêted on his return for the surveying his expedition had achieved. The Royal Geographical Society awarded him its 1853 Patron's Medal "for his enterprising survey of the coasts of Baffin Bay, Smith Sound and Lancaster Sound."
Subsequent Arctic voyages edit
Inglefield made two further voyages to the Arctic, to supply the search for the Franklin expedition overseen by Sir Edward Belcher. He returned from the first of these in 1853, bringing with him the first officer to have traversed the Northwest Passage, Samuel Gurney Cresswell of the HMS Investigator. (The Investigator had also been sent to join the search for the Franklin expedition, but starting from the western side of northern Canada.)
Arriving back in the Arctic the following year, 1854, Inglefield found Belcher's ships abandoned, save one to which the crews had retreated. Most of these men returned with Inglefield to Britain.
Later life edit
Soon after his return from the Arctic, Inglefield was sent to join the Crimean War in the Black Sea as captain of the HMS Firebrand, where he took part in the siege of Sevastopol. After the Crimean War, he captained a number of ships and continued to rise through the ranks. In 1869 he was made a Rear Admiral and three years later was appointed Superintendent of the Royal Naval dockyard in Malta. Promotions to Vice Admiral and then Admiral followed, between which he was knighted.
Inglefield retired in 1885. Thereafter he devoted much of his time to painting and his watercolours of Arctic landscapes were exhibited at several art galleries in London. He died, aged seventy-four, in 1894.
Footnotes edit
- ^ Also known as Isabella.
External links edit
- Three portraits of Sir Edward Augustus Inglefield at the National Portrait Gallery in London.
http://www.archiveshub.ac.uk/news/0407sei.html
Edward Augustus Inglefield was born in 1820 at Cheltenham into a family of distinguished naval stock. At the age of twelve, he entered the Royal Naval College at Portsmouth, joining the Royal Navy two years later and serving in South America, North Africa and the West Indies. Promoted commander, he was appointed to lead the British Franklin Search Expedition in 1852, sponsored by Lady Franklin and by public subscription to search for Sir John Franklin's missing Northwest Passage expedition in Jones Sound and along the west coast of Baffin Bay and Davis Strait. Sailing from Peterhead in the steam-yacht Isabel, Inglefield stopped at west Greenland to obtain dogs before proceeding north and entering Smith Sound, which he penetrated to 78� 28 minutes North. During his surveys around the entrance to Smith Sound, Inglefield charted about 1,000km of new coast and he later made a brief examination of Jones Sound, reaching 84� 10 minutes West before turning back. On the return voyage, he continued the search for Franklin along the east coast of Baffin Island as far as Cumberland Sound before the approach of winter forced him to sail home. On his return, Inglefield was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society and his narrative of the expedition was published in 1853.
In 1853, Inglefield was placed in command of HMS Phoenix on the British Naval Supply Voyage, sent by the Admiralty to deliver supplies and dispatches to the five vessels under Sir Edward Belcher's command. Sailing in company with the transport vessel HMS Breadalbane, Inglefield reached Beechey Island, Barrow Strait where North Star, one of Belcher's vessels, was anchored. In August 1853, Joseph-René Bellot, a French lieutenant and volunteer in Phoenix, was drowned in Wellington Channel on his way from Beechey Island to deliver messages to Belcher. Later in the same month, Breadalbane was nipped in the ice and sank off Beechey Island. After relieving Belcher's expedition, Inglefield returned home in October 1853 and was promoted captain. Returning with Phoenix and HMS Talbot to Beechey Island in 1854 to re-supply Belcher's ships, Inglefield succeeded in bringing home most of the personnel of HMS Investigator and the four abandoned vessels of Belcher's expedition.
After the voyage, Inglefield participated in naval operations during the Crimean War, later serving as British naval attaché in Washington in 1871. In 1872, he was appointed rear admiral of the dockyard at Malta and second in command of the Mediterranean fleet, later serving as vice-admiral commander-in-chief of the North America and West Indies Station between 1878 and 1879. He was knighted in 1877 and retired as admiral in 1885, after which he devoted much of his time to painting. His watercolours of Arctic landscapes were exhibited at several art galleries in London. He died on 4 September 1894 at London.
Published work A summer search for Sir John Franklin; with a peep into the polar basin by Edward Augustus Inglefield, Thomas-Harrison London (1853) SPRI Library Special Collection (*41)91(08)[1852 Inglefield]