The thing that fascinates me about Cherry is how unremarkable he is. He’s surrounded by men who are larger than life, in ability or personality or myth, joining them on the journeys where they achieve heroic deeds or superhuman endurance or lasting scientific discovery. He’s the only man from the winter journey who survived the expedition, he crossed the Barrier with Scott, he failed a rescue mission he didn’t know he was making, he’s one of the few people on earth who saw the polar party’s bodies - and when he took three penguin eggs, painfully gotten, dearly cared for, the last relics of his two best friends, to a place where they should be celebrated and cherished - he was treated like a vagabond who wandered in off the street.
These men and their grand ambitions. And all Cherry wanted was to do a good job and not let his friends down.
I'm nearly 150 pages into Worst Journey and Priestly keeps showing up and he is telling me so many interesting things but I'm still not sure what his Job is on this expedition all Cherry's told me is that he A) wrote a book and B) served with Shackleton and I have discerned that he Takes Photographs which is Important!!! But I am wondering if he is also perhaps. A geologist or something? PLEASE HELP.
LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT SWEET BABY RAY
this stylish dude began his polar career when he was chosen to go on shackleton's nimrod expedition in 1907. he was a geology student at bristol university at the time, only two years into his degree at age 20 and without any qualifications to speak of. shackleton asked him two questions in the interview (“Would you know gold if you saw it?” “Can you play a musical instrument?”) and then he was hired!
he mainly was like... the Young Man of the expedition (alongside brocklehurst who was his age but brocklehurst's role was the Rich Kid) ... the most notable incident was when he slept outside a tent during a blizzard on mount erebus (bc there wasn't room for him inside 😭), got pushed down the hill by the wind in his sleeping bag and nearly died. but he was ok!!! didn't even lose any toes!!! unlike that loser PHIL
(bb priestley on nimrod. early in his baldness journey)
there were two other qualified geologists brought along on the expedition, Edgeworth David and Douglas Mawson, who he learned a lot from, and after the expedition he spent time in Sydney cataloguing and studying the Antarctic samples underneath Professor David. this led to him getting picked right back up by Scott again when one of the Terra Nova's geologists dropped out due to tuberculosis and he asked David who he should take instead.
he wasn't part of the main cape evans party on scott's expedition but was instead the geologist for the Eastern Party, which became the Northern Party and ended up having a ludicrously bad time, trapped in a tiny ice cave for six months. (for more about that check out The Longest Winter!!)
but they rescued their own asses and ended up all getting out OK. while waiting to get picked up by the ship, priestley and debenham hung out at shackleton's cape royds hut (where priestley had lived back in the day) and sketched out the plans for what would eventually become the SPRI!!!
after the expedition, all the scientists went home to england and hung out at priestley's family home in tewkesbury while working on their scientific results. this had the hilarious consequence of two of his sisters getting married to his expedition friends (Doris to Griffith Taylor and Edith to Charles Wright). and deb missed out somehow... tough luck bro.......
(baldness journey well advanced. he is transforming into mark gatiss)
aaaand after that a lot of stuff happened.. like the war.... he got a degree in agriculture (?) then helped deb and wordie found the SPRI, and eventually became a career university administrator. he was very active in lecturing about the antarctic throughout his whole life! and even went back as a tour guide for prince philip in the 50s lmao
in conclusion: priestley you have to stop. you smoke too tough. your swag too different. your bitch is too bad. they'll kill you
Looks like the cat's finally out of the bag! Last year I was able to assist in identifying 4 (FOUR?!?) members of the Franklin expedition! I researched Bridgens, Young, Orren, and Peglar, and was able to find and contact living descendants of their families who agreed to do DNA tests!
The paper about the three from Erebus is live online in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. The second about Peglar is with the Polar Record and should hopefully be coming soon today! And I'll have something up on my blog about it soon, too!
They had a pretty extensive polar history section (most of which was mixed in with their general maritime books, so it took quite a lot of digging). My original pile was way larger than this but unfortunately neither my budget nor my bookshelves are unlimited and I’m going to have a hell of a time finding a place for these ones to live as it is!
From top to bottom:
The Last Place on Earth: Scott and Amundsen’s Race to the South Pole - Roland Huntford
Farthest North - Fridjtof Nansen
Cook & Peary: the Polar Controversy Resolved - Robert M. Bryce
Heart of the Antarctic - Ernest Shackleton
An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean, Antarctic Survivor - Michael Smith
Tragedy and Triumph: the Journals of Captain R. F. Scott’s Last Polar Expedition (an abridged version from what I can tell, it’s about half the size of the other copy of his Terra Nova journals I’ve had my hands on in the past)
Madhouse at the End of the Earth - Julian Sancton
Fury Beach: the Four-year Voyage of Captain John Ross and the Victory - Ray Edinger
Ada Blackjack: a True Story of Survival in the Arctic - Jennifer Niven
Do you have any recommendations for nonfiction about polar exploration? I've read the Shackleton book South, but that's pretty much it and I'd love to read about other explorations!
Oh so many
Currently, my favorite expedition has to be the Belgica; so for that I would recommend reading Madhouse At The End Of The Earth by Julian Sancton first. It came out pretty recently, and should be fairly easy (and affordable) to find.
If you liked that, you can pick your favorite first hand account, such as:
In The Land of the Penguins by Georges Lecointe (my personal favorite), Through the First Antarctic Night by Frederick Cook, or Roald Amundsen’s Belgica Diary.
There are of course others, but I have not read them yet.
(@packloafer also has a great website concerning all things Belgica!)
Concerning the Endurance Expedition, I would recommend starting with Endurance by Alfred Lansing— from there I simply picked my favorite guy (Frank Worsley) and followed him. Worsley’s written two books about the Endurance expedition: Shackleton’s Boat Journey, and Endurance — both of which are enormously entertaining. He also has a very interesting biography: Shackleton’s Captain by John Thomson. There’s plenty more I haven’t read (or forgot to mention, I’m sure )
A great underrated expedition is the Alabama! (Danish, not American) As far as I know there’s only two books about it: Against The Ice, and Lost in the Arctic, both first person accounts by Ejnar Mikkelson. I read Against the Ice (which, from what I understand, is a sort of condensed version of Lost in the Arctic) last year and I really enjoyed it, I plan to read Lost in the Arctic sometime this year!
(There’s also a —largely inaccurate but somewhat entertaining— movie on Netflix about it starring Nikolaj Coster-Waldau)
Another underrated expedition is the Karluk — I’d start with either The Ice Master by Jennifer Niven, or Empire of Ice and Stone by Buddy Levy.
From there I read William Laird McKinlay’s Karluk diary (a bit harder to find, but I can hook you up) and I plan to read McKinlay’s book, Karluk, sometime this year.
If you want to read about Andrée’s balloon expedition, The Expedition by Bea Uusma is an incredible read.
And of course there is the Terra Nova Expedition— I would start with A First Rate Tragedy by Diana Preston, and then I would recommend The Worst Journey In The World by Apsley Cherry-Garrard. There’s plenty more written about it (and at least one show) but I haven’t read an awful lot about this one yet.
And finally, my first love, the Franklin Expedition. I hardly know what to recommend; I started with The Terror (book and show, but—though the show is better— they are firmly historical Fiction)
from there I read Fitzjames’ and Crozier’s biographies (which I did enjoy, but from what I hear the authors of both brought a bit too much imagination into the telling)
(@jamesfitzjamesdotcom has a great website concerning all things Fitzjames, if you want to read more about him!)
I would definitely recommend May We Be Spared To Meet On Earth (which is a compilation of the last known letters from the Franklin Expedition) and Unraveling The Frankly Expedition: Inuit Testimony, and Strangers Among Us, by David C. Woodman.
This is hardly a comprehensive list, but I think it’s a good start — good luck!
(all art —unless specified— by yours truly of course)
just started reading about nansen for the first time in earnest and like. i knew he was scandinavian. i knew he was norwegian. but even with that knowledge i cannot understate the jumpscare i got when i saw his wikipedia picture for the first time
Thomas Jopson, Captain's Steward aboard HMS Terror
Also available to read on alongblank.com.
Thomas Jopson was a Captain's Steward aboard the Terror on the 1845 Franklin expedition. In the expedition's muster books his birthplace is given as Marylebone, Middlesex, and his age as 27, which would put his birth around 1818. He previously served in the navy aboard the same ship as part of the 1839-43 Sir James Ross' Antarctic expedition.
Prior to the Antarctic expedition, he had served aboard HMS Racer in 1838, which was his first entry into the Navy, according to Ralph Lloyd-Jones in The men who sailed with Franklin. He was 5'5" tall with a fair complexion, hazel eyes, brown hair, and a scar on his right leg.
Thomas was born on 14 Nov 1816, and baptized on 8 Dec 1816 at St Marylebone, Westminster, making him a couple years older than his age in the muster. His parents were named William and Sarah. His father's occupation was just listed vaguely as "trade" on Thomas' baptism, but other documents show he was a tailor.
On the 1845 expedition Thomas allotted part of his salary to his father, William Jopson, who at that time was listed as living at 3 Gee Street, Brick Lane, St. Luke's, London.
British Royal Navy Allotment Declarations, The National Archives, ADM 27/90.
In 1854, after the expedition was given up for dead, a woman named Mary Pratt was named the administrator of his estate. She lived in Hoxton, Middlesex, and her husband was a machinist named Samuel Pratt. It's mentioned that Thomas' father, William Jopson, would have been his administrator, but he'd died before taking admon and so it went to Mary Pratt, who was his own administrator.
Death Duty Register, The National Archives, IR 26, 1854.
Thomas' relation to Mary Pratt is not specified in the Death Duty Register, but further probate records, such as the Seamen's Effects Papers and Administration Act Books, show that she was his sister.
Administration Act Books, The National Archives, PROB 6, 1854.
Curiously, Jopson's rank is incorrect in his probate records. In both of the above records he's listed as a petty officer / Captain of the Hold. The Captain of the Hold aboard Terror was William Goddard; Thomas was a steward. The Administration Act Books even get his name wrong once, calling him Thomas Jackson.
Thomas Jopson's Family
I believe Thomas's parents were William Jopson and Sarah Goodfellow, who married in Marylebone on 21 Jan 1816. William was born around 1791 and Sarah was born around 1794.
Note: "Jobson" was a very common misspelling of Jopson. We can see Jopson is spelt incorrectly by the curate in the marriage record above, but is correct in William’s signature.
In the 1841 England census we can find William and Sarah Jopson residing at an unspecified address on Gee Street. There are two children, William and Emma, residing with them.
While the 1845 allotment list states William lived at 3 Gee Street, I believe that was a typo. The records I found show him at 30 Gee Street from at least 1839 until 1849.
1848 London directory.
Sarah Jopson died on 6 July 1849 of "cirrhosis, several years." William followed her a little over a year later, dying of "paralysis, five months" on 10 July 1850. At the time of his death he'd been living with his daughter, Mary Pratt, at her address on Mintern Street.
I believe Thomas had six or seven siblings, of which he was the eldest. I found baptismal records for six children that seemed to match up: Mary, Sarah, Ann Jane, Robert, Emma, and Henry John. I couldn't find a baptism record for the 10-year-old William Jopson present in the 1841 census. In 1841 relations weren't specified, so it's possible that he wasn't William and Sarah's child, but rather a nephew or young cousin. It's also possible that he was their child, but his baptism record doesn't survive, perhaps getting damaged or lost in the last 200 years. It's also possible his baptism record does exist and I just missed it.
Baptisms of the Jopson children, 1819 - 1839.
Of the sons I have baptism records for, both Robert and Henry John died young, Robert in 1832 and Henry John in 1839. Robert was buried at Spa-fields grounds, a privately owned cemetery which would quickly become notorious for its overcrowded and insanitary conditions. News reports from 1845 detail how coffins were dug up and reused, and bodies dismembered and partially burned to save space.
Ann Jane may also have died as a child in 1827. There’s a burial record in the same cemetery for a 3-year-old “Jane Jobson” whose details seem to match. However, I should note there was another William & Sarah Jobson who had a daughter named Jane the same year, so there is no guarantee the child buried is the right one, though that couple lived in Cambridgeshire, so it is less likely.
Mary Jopson married a man named Samuel Pratt on 23 Aug 1843. As previously mentioned, she was the administrator of both Thomas' and her father's estates. Mary and Samuel Pratt did not appear to have children; instead, they took in their niece Annie Maria Lewis and raised her for a number of years.
Said niece was the daughter of Emma Jopson and her husband, Thomas Henry Lewis, a coach maker. They married on 25 March 1860 in Hackney. Samuel Pratt was one of the witnesses to the marriage. Emma and Thomas Henry had nine children, five of whom were daughters.
Sarah Jopson, the remaining sister, married a minister named John W Kirton in 1853. They had two sons and no daughters.
My ultimate goal is to find living descendants that qualify for a DNA test in an attempt to identify sailors on the expedition. A DNA donor must come from an unbroken male or female line descended from a common ancestor. In this case, looking at Thomas Jopson's siblings, the only option is his sister Emma.
For all my prior successful maternal and paternal lines I've been able to find a handful of descendants, if not more. For Emma, I was only able to locate one living descendant in her female line, and he was male, meaning that while he would qualify for an mtDNA test, none of his own children would. He was quite literally the only remaining option (well, the only one without having to go up the tree and try again with an uncle or aunt).
Luckily, I was able to get in touch with him, and he was interested. He took the DNA test, and the result came back negative. There's no match for Jopson among the remains of the Franklin expedition.
(Or, I should say, it's likely there's no match for Jopson. There's always a chance that something like an under-the-table adoption happened in the past, breaking what looks like a perfectly good maternal line, and making the results of a DNA test meaningless. It's hard to say anything definitively.)
Emma Jopson's Maternal Line
Emma Jopson was born around 1834. She's one of the children present at Gee Street in the 1841 census. In 1851 she lived with her sister and brother-in-law, Samuel and Mary Pratt, at Mintern Street. A cousin with the surname Lewis was also staying with them.
She married Thomas Henry Lewis in 1860. I suspected that Emma and her husband were cousins from the above census mentioning a Lewis cousin, and it appears they are. The Lewis in the 1851 census is his sister, and their mother is Ann Bond Goodfellow, a relation of Thomas' mother.
Emma and her husband had nine children — Eliza Mary Lewis (1860 - 1905), Jane Lewis (1862 - 1911), Annie Maria Lewis (1865 - 1951), Thomas Henry Lewis (1867 - 1900), Samuel Jopson Lewis (1869 - 1946), Jubal Williams Lewis (1871 - 1874), Albert Lewis (1873 - ?), Rose Alice Lewis (1875 - 1875), and May Alexandra Lewis (1876 - 1952).
The Jopson sisters were all very close, and we can see that reflected in the censuses. Several Lewis children lived temporarily or permanently with Emma's sisters. Annie Maria was living with her aunt Mary Pratt in all censuses from 1871 to 1901, and both Eliza Mary and Jane stayed with their aunt Sarah Kirton during a census at some point.
1871 England census, Lewis residence. Gloucester Rd, St Pancras, London.
1871 England census, Kirton residence. 73 Belgrave Rd, Birmingham, Warwickshire.
1871 England census, Pratt residence. 22 Foulden Rd, Hackney, London.
After Emma's husband passed away in 1894 she lived with her daughter, May Alexandra, even after May married. Emma passed away on 4 Apr 1914, and in her will she left everything to May Alexandra, and mentioned she may distribute it to her siblings Ms. Mason (Annie Maria) and Albert at her discretion. Curiously, her son Samuel Jopson Lewis, who was also still living at this point, was not mentioned.
Emma Jopson's Maternal Line
Full details on her maternal line can be found on my blog or on Ancestry.com.
50 years ago, on November 9th, 1975, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald left Superior, Wisconsin on a beautiful and unseasonably warm autumn day carrying 29 men and 26,116 long tons of taconite. It was to be the Fitzgerald’s last run of the season before putting up for winter repairs, and it was to be Captain Ernest McSorley’s final run before retiring to spend time with his wife.
The crew was aware of an inbound storm due to roll in overnight, but no one had predicted how two storm fronts, one from the southwest and one down from Canada, would clash over Lake Superior, causing what would be remembered as one of the worst storms of the century. McSorley was respected as one of the best captains on the Great Lakes, a heavy weather sailor who knew how to handle storms. McSorley rarely opted for cautious leeward routes but as this storm began to unfold he chose to keep close to Isle Royale and the Ontario shore. Our last communication from them was a message from McSorley to fellow freighter Arthur M. Anderson at 7.10 pm.
“We are holding our own,” they said.
It’s haunting to know that at this very moment fifty years ago they were probably in great spirits in good water, bringing the ship back on the last run of the 1975 season, looking forward to spending the winter at home.
Tomorrow, on the 50th anniversary of the sinking, the Detroit Mariners’ Church bells will ring 30 times — once for each of the souls lost to the lake and once for Gordon Lightfoot, who brought a somber remembrance and immortality to them all.
I’ve been knitting for almost a year now but I’ve never tried to make something entirely without a pattern yet, and I’ve certainly never tried to make my own pattern, but there’s a first time for everything and sometimes you just gotta go for it! I wouldn’t be surprised if someone had already made a pattern or has one that already exists that’s close.
Two knitted cotton gloves belonging to a member of Sir John Franklin's 1845 Arctic expedition. They are two left hands, not a pair. The remains of elastic at the wrists and a small heart worked into the palm of both hands are visible. Found laid out to dry on Beechey Island on 29 August 1850 by Sherard Osborn, HMS 'Pioneer', during Captain Horatio Austin's search expedition 1850-51.
(Photos & item description courtesy of the National Maritime Museum)
Through some incredibly unscientific methods, I think the gauge of the relic gloves is roughly (36 stitches by 54 rows = 2x2 inches). If that seems wildly incorrect, it’s probably because it is!! I used my own hand as a reference and overlaid a photo of it, with a ruler, on top of the image of the glove. Because of that, I’m going to assume my guess at the gauge is too small, but I’ll let someone more qualified than me correct that.
The reason I say that it’s almost definitely too small is because, the way I overlaid the image of my hand, it’s clearly not fitted as tightly as a glove would be. Please consider that I barely know what I’m doing!
This seam is also throwing me off a bit- it looks as though they’ve been knitted flat and seamed rather than the fingers knitted in the round? However, it also looks to me as though there’s only a seam going up one side of the finger and not back down together, as I assume there would be if the front and back were knitted flat then joined together. However, that seam might also just be Gone with time or I’m not noticing it.
Disclosure #3 that I don’t know what I’m doing: I’ve never made gloves with fingers before (several pairs of fingerless gloves though) and I’ve always just knit the thumb in the round on DPNs.
Regarding the thumb on these gloves: it doesn’t look like it’s simply coming out of the side like most gloves I’ve seen patterns for (or even the fingerless ones I’ve made that are pictured below). They’re knit as left and right gloves, though these specific ones are two left hands; not a pair. Pretty much every basic glove pattern I’ve found is for knitting gloves that don’t matter which hand you put them on (again, like the ones I’ve made that are pictured below). If I’m being fully honest, it’s the thumb that scares me the most out of this entire project (short of making the pattern itself).
This is my initial swatch on an improvised blocking board, which comes in at (~20 stitches and 20 rows = 2x1.5 inches) which is far too large for these gloves. I did it on 2.25mm DPNs, as they’re the smallest needles I currently have but I’m looking at getting some smaller ones for this project. I’m pretty attached to the yarn here because it’s a lovely mottled off-white that I think will end up looking wonderfully dirty and aged without ACTUALLY being dirty and old.
This is a pair of gloves (only one pictured) that I made a little while back and worked a heart into as a test for the relic gloves, they’re wonderfully thick and warm and I’m quite happy with how they turned out (and they should also give a decent idea of what my current knitting skill level is). As you can see, I’ve also still got to weave my ends in. The most complicated thing I’ve ever done is a pair of socks (which turned out quite nice really but tumblr is capping me at 10 images).
Regarding the worked heart, I did it according to a chart in a gansey knitting pattern book that I have, and each stitch is just a purl instead of a knit. The relic gloves don’t necessarily look like they’ve been done that way- I’m thinking a twisted knit stitch instead of a purl but I can’t quite tell?
This post is partially just for my own reference and to track what I’m doing and working on, but it’s also a cry for help for anyone who actually knows what they’re doing when it comes to creating patterns and replicating knit garments like this.
