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The news that one of the two lost ships from Sir John Franklin’s doomed Arctic expedition has been found could solve one of polar exploration’s greatest mysteries.
Franklin, a Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer, set out in 1845 with two ships, Erebus and Terror, to map the fabled Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic. The expedition foundered after the ships became locked in ice.
From 1848 to 1859, numerous rescue expeditions were launched. The Manchester Guardian reported on these but no one knew exactly what had happened to the 129 crew members.
The Erebus and Terror set out from Greenhithe, Kent, on 19 May 1845:
A few months later, the paper printed a report from the Baretto Junior, a transport ship that accompanied the two main vessels to the edge of the ice.
In 1854, the explorer John Rae discovered evidence of the men’s fate when he met some ‘Esquimaux’ who told him of seeing a party of around 40 men who had died of starvation.
A detailed report from another expedition appeared in January 1856:
The 1857 Mclintock Arctic expedition purchased various Franklin relics from a group of Innuit and in 1859 the paper published a piece about the finds.
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