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Searching for Franklin from Australia: William Parker Snow's initiative of 1853

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2009

William Barr
William Barr
Affiliation:
Department of Geography, University of Saskatchewan, 9 Campus Drive, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan S7N 5A5, Canada
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Abstract

In 1853 William Parker Snow (who had earlier participated in an expedition to search for the missing Franklin expedition in what is now the Canadian Arctic) decided to sink the money he had made in Melbourne during the Australian gold rush into a private expedition to search for Franklin, starting from Melbourne. In the southern autumn of 1853, he bought a 16-ton cutter, The Thomas, and, despite the handicaps of exorbitant prices and shortage of labour, fitted the vessel out for an Arctic expedition during the continuing frenzy of the gold rush. After calling at Sydney, The Thomas started north but encountered a series of violent winter gales that damaged her severely and forced Snow to seek shelter in the mouth of the Clarence River in northeastern New South Wales. By the time the storm damage had been repaired, all but two of Snow's men had deserted. Still in hopes of trying again, Snow sailed his cutter back south to Sydney and there finally abandoned this, one of the more bizarre episodes of the Franklin search.

Type
Articles
Information
Polar Record , Volume 33 , Issue 185 , April 1997 , pp. 145 - 150
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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