The Indifferent Century @indifferent-century - Tumblr Blog

“I was limited to 12 lines to speak of his services. It was hardly possible to say the thousandth part of what I should have like to have said of one I so truly loved.“

–James Clark Ross, writing to Eleanor Franklin Gell about Francis Crozier, 1855

Thank you to @annecoulmanross for isolating JCR’s handwriting!

#new Terror people I am here to introduce you to my favorite cold boys #indifferentart #james clark ross #francis crozier #if you have learned about James Dear #just letting you know there is more where that came from!

i-am-countess-olivia

Crozier and Ross: a dance on the ice

(As usual, a caveat about something being obvious to others but new to my simple brain)

'Captain Crozier and Miss Ross opened the ball with a quadrille"

Yes they did. But I also believe we have an actual picture of James and Francis dancing together.

This depiction by John Edward Davis (who is also responsible for the above quote) of the Ross Expedition's 1842 New Year celebration on the ice is my desktop background. I stare at it every day and the more I look at it, the more I love it.

Just look at those jolly pissed up sailors! The energy, the music, the hooting and grinning, the booze, the hat-waving cheers. it's WILD. It's pure joy.

And the dancing! The hand-holding dancing!

The figures of the men are hugely expressive. Not just their smiling and cheering expressions, their pipe-chomping, their coats variously unbottoned coat, but their bodies. Davis very deliberately depicts what it is their bodies are doing in their respective enjoyment of the festivities.

Also, wait — is that someone who's just floored it after slipping on the ice? And the suggestive snowy footprints leading away from the Ice Venus in the foreground? It's QUITE the scene.

The Dancing Captains

Some years back, in their fantastic post, @indifferent-century pointed to the two top hatted figures at the centre as very likely being James Clark Ross and Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier:

"And in the center we have two blue-coated and hat-wearing figures sitting seated on a high platform of snow."

HANG ON.... ARE they sitting?

Let's look at the energetic, leg-kicking dancing happening elsewhere in the scene. The men are holding hands in groups of three, five.. and four.

...It's the same arrangement. It's the quadrille.

You cannot convince me that isn't Francis and James DANCING the quadrille with two of their company. I would also put a bet on the lighter-haired figure on the right being Francis, either about to hold hands with James and the other smiling figure — or maybe slipping on the ice :D

ADDENDUM ON POSSIBLE NO-HOMO in the depiction of our two captains: I also noticed that whilst all the other dancing groups are holding hands, our captains are not. Perhaps whilst it was just about acceptable for Davis to depict his captains dancing (albeit face away), having them hold hands would have been a step too far.

Then again, as @sunflowerbower pointed out, the "Ross" figure IS holding up his coat in the same way the woman on the far right of the image above is holding up her dress.

Here we have her.

Miss Ross. Holding up her "skirt".

indifferent-century

@i-am-countess-olivia I think you’re right! I had thought Ross was sitting and leaning forward with his hands on his legs, but this makes a lot of sense. Now the eternal debate as to whether he may have worn a dress for the actual event, even if it’s not in the painting - although it looks like the long coat is working just fine!

I wonder who the other two might be? They don’t seem to be wearing officers’ coats. And what is on the one guy’s head - is that supposed to be some sort of ladies’ cap?

#james clark ross #francis crozier #polar exploration #ross expedition

noonesgaylikegatson

Do women drunk on the trad wife fantasy know that women have been working in factories since the 1800s?

Like, why do you always assume you’re going to be middle to upper class living in the suburbs being a full time homemaker?

You’re more likely to be living in a multigenerational household while also doing some work on the side while raising your kids. Your money will go straight to your husband and he gets to decide what happens to it.

bemusedlybespectacled

between this and that one post about how men want to go back to a mythical world where there were gentleman's clubs and galas (the kicker being that we still have those today, it's just that the men fantasizing about this shit would never have the wealth or social connections to be able to go to them then OR now), it's occurring to me that a nonzero number of "trad" people are just fantasizing about being wealthy but with extra window dressing

beggars-opera

real tradwives do piece work making silk flowers for rich ladies' hats in a tenement with their similarly employed ten children and three other families living in the same flat

clove-pinks

'COMR. ROSS PLANTING THE BRITISH STANDARD on the TRUE POSITION of the MAGNETIC POLE', an illustration in The last voyage of Capt. Sir John Ross, R.N., published 1835 by Robert Huish.

ltwilliammowett

The Endurance in ice - Tom McLeod, member of the 1914 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, stood anxiously on the deck of the Endurance.

thecunnydiaries

19th Sunday

Very fine ice, rather thick: Divine Service. Erebus Lowered a boat in the forenoon and landed on the ice with Some instruments. Passed Several Seals and a few Penguins: a number of Snow birds about and some Cape Pigeons: Saw four Whales Spouting. In the first watch Capn Ross and Several of the Officers on the Erebus came onboard: night most beautifull. Captain Ross went 30.10 PM and remained Shooting on the ice till midnight.

thatbirdguyyouknow

Ross's Gull sketchpage before finals eats me alive. Although I suppose they won't be Ross's Gull for much longer after the ABA actually starts up the renaming comittees. I'd say sorry to JCR, but he's got enough stuff named after him already. And he's also dead.

luff-gore-deactivated20250731

Does anyone happen to have any historical context about the scar on James Clark Ross' forehead?

It is most visible on two photographs taken in the 1850s (held by the Royal Society) and around 1860 (held by the National Portrait Gallery), as well as a painting from around 1850 (also held by the National Portrait Gallery, even though it seems to run into the opposite direction here). Another painting from around 1848 (held by the Scott Polar Research Institute) might also show the scar but I am not entirely certain.

While earlier paintings do not seem to show the scar (for example, the two held by the National Maritime Museum Greenwich from the 1820s and 1834, I believe) this does not necessarily have to mean anything, after all paintings are often very idealising and try to depict an idea of a person rather than their actual physical appearance.

My educated guess would be that Ross got scarred either during Parry's fourth expedition for the North Pole in 1827 when he got crushed by one of the boats while hauling (Parry [1828]: Narrative or an Attempt to Reach the North Pole, p. 101). Or possibly (although less likely) during the Ross Expedition for Antarctica in 1842 when the HMS Erebus and Terror collided (i.a. Ross [1847]: A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions [vol. 2], pp. 217-218). Of course it's also possible that he was injured during the early search for the Franklin expedition in 1848/49 (I remember reading that Ross was stuck in the sickbay for two or three weeks but I cannot remember where I got this information from and whether it's actually valid).

But that's not a hill I'm willing to die on. Thoughts?

moongazeonastarfillednight

There was a significant number of first-hand accounts from all expeditions commanded by Parry and Ross (both of them), as well as letters and records, etc. On the 4th Parry, his back was mentioned but not his head (which I feel should have been in there if it had happened) and I assume that he would have mentionned (or Hooker/McCormick might have) if he had received a head wound while in Antarctica. Like William Cunningham keeps track of everytime Crozier has a cough in his journal so I kinda hope it would have been mentionned?

But what I have not seen yet is a comprehensive narrative from the 1848-1849 Franklin Relief mission. Maybe it exists and I just haven't found it...

Basically, we know it did not go according to plan, and I think I read somewhere that Ross just went out to scout on his own (but PLEASE do not quote me on that... he did a significant amount of map making, completing the maps of the west coast of the Boothia Peninsula, but he was the Captain and, therefore, would probably not have run off on his own. It was from The Franklin Conspiracy by Latta... which basically blame aliens for the Franklin Expedition disappearance lmao... I wouldn't say it's a reputable source even though Latta's own sources were pretty solid ).

More importantly, and as you mentionnedm we know that by the time they exited the Arctic, Ross himself had been on the sick list for several weeks (It is reported in Polar Pioneer by MJ Ross but I'd have to find his primary source) I have yet to find information as to why. It could have been from scurvy, rheumatism (which he was a known sufferer of) or... perhaps... an injury?👀

I feel that considering the little amount of information on that expedition compared to the others he went on, it fits that it was then that he received the wound especially because it seems to have appeared in his portraits after 1848. The other voyage he made with as little information was on Cove during the whaler rescue attempt of 1835-1836.

That being said, we also have an account of Lady Jane's impression of Ross upon his first visit at Hobart in 1840 and while she does comment on his greying hair, she makes no mention of a scar so Cove is out for me. (could be nothing but I suppose that if she was to talk about the hair to nuance Ross' handsomeness to her penpal, she would have included a scar that does look to be rather long in the middle of his forehead?)

Overall, it's a bit of a mystery I think?

... It also fits in my heart that he would be so eager to find his friends that he would have thrown all caution to the wind and got himself injured. That he would be so desperate to find anyone alive in a place that had him suffer starvation and scurvy so many years before that he would have rushed without any thoughts to his own well being. ... Anyway, that might be nothing...

williamedwardparry

It does seem to be a bit of a mystery source-wise, ie never mentioned outright by anyone, but I'm gonna tag in @indifferent-century who's been researching him for years and who (iirc) has mentioned this on twt 👀

(And yeah, everyone in the sledging parties, presumably including JCR, was on the sick list for at least 2 weeks during the 1848-49 exp. Seems to have been a mix of overexertion, scurvy, sunblindness cases, injuries, etc. There's no full account of the Enterprise-Investigator exp, but we have Ross' report, where this is mentioned: We reached the ship on the 23rd, the party so completely worn out by fatigue that every man was from some cause or other in the doctor’s hands for two or three weeks, and I am sorry to say that two of them are not yet recovered.)

indifferent-century

Happy to add on to this! Thanks for tagging me ❤️

I have never seen an explanation of his eyebrow scar, although it is quite definitively there in many portraits! It appears to be there in the Negelen engraving, which was based on a sketch done before the Antarctic expedition left.

Compare the print with a later photograph, and you can see the print shows the same shape over his eyebrow .

So he’d have to have gotten the scar sometime before 1839. The fact that it just shows up and no one mentions it seems to suggest that it was just recognized as one of his defining features, but maybe didn’t have a big story behind it. How long he had it is unclear - the earlier paintings don’t show it, but that could be an artistic choice.

The youngest portrait we have is this one of him as a midshipman, which was clearly done by someone who was familiar with him, as it goes as far as to show his cheekbone freckles. The only thing is that the painting is undated, so it’s hard to tell whether it was actually done when he was a midshipman, or if it was done retroactively later on. It’s also mirrored (the freckles should be on his left cheek, not right) so the scar would be on the right side of the painting in here …. And if you squint you can kind of think that maybe the artist put it there, but it’s really hard to tell.

Something I did find is that he came down with smallpox in 1837, while he was on his magnetic survey of Britain, and while he wrote in a letter that he was assured that it was mild and wouldn’t scar badly, he did complain for some time in future letters that his “countenance” was “out of repair.” So it is possible that the scar came from that illness, although he never talks about it again that I’ve seen.

I’ll definitely share anything if I find it later! For a man noted for his striking appearance it’s strange that no one mentions the scar, but perhaps if he was self-conscious about it (if it indeed was from illness and not an exciting adventure story), that would make sense that no one talked about it. Shame, because I think it’s actually quite appealing and not a detraction at all….

(As a side note about the 1849 sick list - he definitely did get into some trouble on that expedition, but the post-sledging sickness you are referring to was recorded in the medical log as “arthritis” and described by McClintock as soreness from exertion. Walking 500 miles will do that even when you’re not 49 years old!)

Oh and not to dash any hopes but I have never seen the original thing where Lady Franklin said that Ross was “the handsomest man in the navy,” and neither has anyone I’ve asked. I’m starting to think it’s just rumor that she said it at all. I’ve got a lot (okay, three) instances of men saying he was handsome, so it was definitely a known factor, but what Lady Franklin had to say, at least word-for-word, isn’t that clear. Point being is that people saw him with the eyebrow scar and all, and liked what they saw!

indifferent-century

Oh and re: comprehensive account of the 1848-49 mission, you are right, there isn’t one!

Which is why I’m writing one.

(Or am in the research phase for one, more like 😂)

It usually gets overlooked for being unsuccessful, and Ross gets a bad rap that he really didn’t deserve, but it did really set the stage for a lot of the further searches.

It’s not that exciting compared to later searches, but certainly had its moments. Ross fell through the ice! A man ran back to the ship thinking he was pursued by a bear but it was just another sailor all bundled up! The officers held navigational classes for the crew, and one sailor got so obsessed with the theory of gravity his nickname just became “Old Gravity.” They tried to trap foxes to give them message collars but the foxes figured out they had food and just kept coming back!

There is an article by A.G.E. Jones if you can find it on JSTOR or elsewhere, but that’s the most comprehensive account so far.