#jcrappreciationmonth

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Since I have been interested in paintings from the Ross Antarctic Expedition lately, how about this painting done by James Ross himself?  It’s much more of a suggestive rather than detailed piece, but I think it has a very somber mood to it that would have been appropriate for the occasion of reaching “Furthest South.”  From the collection of the Royal Institute of Great Britain, catalogued at WatercolourWorld.org. 

[solomontoaster]

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

Chapters: 1/? Fandom: The Terror (TV 2018) Rating: Mature Warnings: Major Character Death Relationships: Commander James Fitzjames/Sir James Clark Ross Characters: Commander James Fitzjames, Sir James Clark Ross, Captain Francis Crozier, John Bridgens Additional Tags: Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, past Fitzjames/Crozier, mutual pining Ross/Crozier, Rescue, Grief/Mourning, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, not slow burn per say, it does take them time, but it's more like a burning trail of gunpowder that leads to like the rest of the gunpowder, JCR Appreciation Month, Other Additional Tags to Be Added Summary:

“And where is Francis in all this?”

The worry was evident in Ross’s voice and Fitzjames had to make an effort to not grimace. “Ill,” he said at last. “Too ill to command."

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When Francis Crozier dies in the Arctic, James Fitzjames and Sir James Clark Ross fall into an odd relationship as they attempt to cope with losing the man they loved.

@indifferent-century

[indifferent-century]

James Clark Ross, and his officers aboard Erebus and Terror, often wrote about their encounters with penguins during the Antarctic Expedition of 1838-42. So for Penguin Awareness Day, I thought I’d draw this picture of James Ross with an Adélie penguin, a species that lives along the Antarctic coast.

The Adélie penguin was named after Adèle Dumont d’Urville, whose husband Jules Sébastien César Dumont d’Urville was one of Ross’s competitors in the race for Furthest South.

I gave Ross longer hair than usual based on pretty scanty evidence - but John Davis mentioned in his famous Antarctic letter that many men on the expedition did grow their hair, and James Ross famously did attend New Years in the Ice in the guise of a woman, so... it’s possible!

(Even though this is historical JCR I hope it can also count toward my @theterrorbingo square for “The Antarctic”!)

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James Clark Ross and Francis Crozier in John Davis’s Watercolors?

A Theory After my post about New Year’s celebrations on the Ross Antarctic Expedition, I’ve been thinking a lot about John Edward Davis’s painting of the 1842 party in the ice. I love this image because it gives a personal dimension to the expedition, and has a sense of emotion that official accounts often can’t convey. We have officers in their blue coats and sailors in their festive costumes, people making music and dancing -- and all having a demonstrably joyous time, regardless of rank. 

The best thing about this painting, though, is that we have a written description to the event to go with it, penned by the artist himself. In a letter to his sister, Davis wrote about many of the things we can see in the image - assembly rooms carved out of ice, handmade decorations including a snow sculpture of the “Venus de Medici,” sailors dressed up as caricatured “soldiers” on parade. In the background some of the men are playing “Bell the Cat” (called a “jingling match” by another officer from the expedition), which is much like modern Marco Polo and involves a group of blindfolded players trying to catch a non-blindfolded player who is ringing a bell.

And if the written accompaniment wasn’t already enough to make this painting unique, Davis even mentions the painting in his letter. “I afterwards did a bit of a picture of the scene,” he writes, “which has been greatly praised, and I have been asked to get it engraved and so ensured against loss, but there are two people to give their consent to that.”

Presumably, the two people who must give their consent are the leaders of the expedition, Crozier and Ross.  

Davis did go on to get many of his drawings lithographed when he returned to England, and several appear as illustrations in Ross’s published account of the expedition. I suspect that any drawing would need the captains’ permission for publication, because they would want to control what the public saw and thus thought about the expedition. But Davis might have had special concerns about this image of merry-making, since it is not exactly the image of heroism and rank-based hierarchy the navy usually promoted for itself. Everyone in Britain knew the stereotype that sailors were the partying type, but when officers were involved, things might get more complicated. 

And what might have made Davis even more cautious to ask the captains’ permission, I believe, is the fact that the two men might be IN the painting. 

When describing the festivities, Davis mentions that after a signal gun was fired from Erebus, “the two captains made their appearance (under a rather irregular salute of musketry from a party of the men rigged as a guard of honour) and took their seats on a raised snow sofa, and soon after the ball commenced.” All of this seems to be in the painting -- at the left we can see a group of men gathered on deck, possibly having just fired the gun. Some of the men dressed as “soldiers” also to the left are carrying muskets. And in the center we have two blue-coated and hat-wearing figures sitting seated on a high platform of snow. 

I’m not sure which figure is Ross and which is Crozier, and given the rough nature of the drawing it’s likely that Davis didn’t intend the identities to much matter. But both seem to be relaxed and having a fun time of it, which certainly points to Ross’s later assertion that “if our friends in England could have witnessed the scene, they would have thought, what I am sure was truly the case, that we were a very happy party.” Given the rarity of portraits of Crozier, and the equal rarity of images of the Two Captains together, I think even this rough image is exciting! 

With this all in mind, a comparison of the New Years painting with some of Davis’s other works suggests that we might have two other depictions of the captains together. In this image of men walking in the ice on the Ross Sea, two identically-dressed figures are standing and conversing to the left of the painting, where another figure is making scientific observations. 

They appear again in the center of Davis’s painting of the planting of a Union Jack on Possession Island, surrounded by the crew as well as thousands of penguins. 

It is still very possible that the figures are just two ambiguous officers in all of these paintings. But given their repeated appearances, I am given to suppose that they are intended to be not only important, but recognizable.  If you’re still with me here at the end of this post, thanks for sticking around! Here is a known image of the Two Captains, along with John Franklin, at Rossbank Observatory in Hobart, Tasmania. It’s not painted by John Davis, but as a fun fact - Davis was the original artist of the scene. Crozier asked him to draw it as a gift for Lady Franklin, and it was later redone as an oil painting by Thomas Bock. 

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Images from John Ross’s Narrative of a Second Voyage in Search of a North-West Passage, and of a residence in the Arctic regions during the years 1829, 1830, 1831, 1832, 1833. 

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John Ross’s narrative of his ill-fated expedition in the steam ship Victory, during which his nephew James Clark Ross discovered the location of the North Magnetic Pole, is copiously illustrated with images taken from the captain’s own drawings. There were two versions of the original printing, and the more expensive of the two included several illustrations in color. 

Among the images are depictions of the Victory under sail and later beset by ice, the expedition’s winter conditions in Felix harbor, and the snow structure “Somerset House” that the crew built for shelter at Fury Beach after Victory was abandoned. There are scenes of the expedition claiming land for the crown, the men meeting with members of local Inuit communities, and a hunting party including James Clark Ross shooting a musk-ox. 

These images are from a copy in the special collections at the University of Glasgow, described here.   Thank you to @ltwilliammowett for sharing this webpage with me! 

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Ringing in the New Year, 1842 

(Illustration: painting of the same name by John Edward Davis ) Holidays at sea in the nineteenth century Royal Navy were generally a cause for merriment, marked at the very least by the distribution of an extra round of grog - “Splicing the mainbrace,” as the practice was called. Officers might hold special dinners amongst themselves, and sailors might organize games, music, or other festivities.

In the discovery service, being ice-locked on a holiday could lead to some particular amusements.  

The precedent for grand celebrations in the polar regions can be traced back to the voyages of Sir Edward Parry, who spent numerous winters in the Arctic and was adamant that his crews remain busy and entertained, to combat the dreaded melancholia (often referred to as ”debility”) that could come while frozen in during a season wherein the sun never rose. Parry and his men created the Royal Arctic Theatre, holding full costumed performances on board their ships, and also organized masquerade balls around the New Year and in the depths of winter. These were events where social standards were broken down a bit, with both officers and sailors participating, and men in many cases dressing in women’s clothing (a necessity when casting a play of course, but also a sort of understanding that so far from English “society,” norms could be flexible for the sake of men’s morale.) James Clark Ross served as a midshipman and later a lieutenant on no fewer than four of Parry’s voyages of exploration. In three of those instances he was serving alongside his closest friend and future second-in-command, Francis Crozier. Although December marks the height of the summer, not winter, in the Antarctic, and the sun, rather than never rising, does not set, it is not surprising that Ross and Crozier would follow Parry’s example on their Antarctic expedition of 1839-43. Journals from the expedition recount that New Years celebrations were standard through the four-year voyage, but the turn of 1841 into 1842 was the most notable. With the ships Erebus and Terror trapped in pack ice near the Antarctic Circle, the officers had a unique opportunity to hold a grand party on the ice itself. A sort of ballroom was carved in the ice, complete with ice statues and decorated with flags and improvised tavern signs. There were four days of dancing and games, highlighted by a “fancy ball” (masquerade/costume party) which featured Captain Ross in the guise of a woman opening the dance floor as Crozier’s partner in a quadrille.

Some written accounts of the festivities below the cut!

From a letter written by John Edward Davis to his sister. Davis was  Second Master HMS Terror, and also the artist who painted the watercolor above:

... On the 30th we got no farther than the Circle, and the ice was so close and thick that we could not proceed; the weather was thick and foggy, and the mist on the rigging froze as it fell, and as their was danger of fouling or losing each other, there not being room to work, we made fast to the same piece of ice, and of course being only about 50 yards apart there was a great deal of visiting, for we had but to walk across the ice to get to the Erebus. So we proposed to see the Old Year out and the New Year in in style on the 31st. I dined on board the Erebus, and after dinner Hooker (the assistant surgeon of the Erebus) and myself went on the ice and cut out in the hard snow the figure of a woman, which we called our “Venus de Medici.” She was made sitting down and about eight feet long, and as the snow froze very hard she remained perfect till we left the flow. I assure you that (although I says it as shouldn’t) it was not badly executed, and was the cause of a good deal of fun, and was much criticised; after that we cleared away a room by cutting down to the solid ice, and built a table in it, on which to drink the Old Year out and the New Year in. At a few minutes before twelve you would have been stunned with the noise that was made, each ship trying to beat the other--blowing of horns, beating of gongs, squealing of pigs (for the men took the latter under their arms to make them make a noise), and all kinds of diabolical music--and at twelve it was increased by each ship ringing forty-two bells, which is called ringing the New Year in. We then all (I mean the officers of course) assembled at our refreshment room on the ice between the ships where the two captains soon joined us. Captain Ross was in high spirits, shaking hands with everybody and wishing them a Happy New Year. He then drank the health of all our men (for they were all up), the hands having been turned up to “Splice the main brace.” They then cheered him, and the same thing was done by Captain Crozier to the Erebus, and after some more drinking and cheering we separated for the night, or morning.

On New Year’s Day I wished you all many happy returns of it; and my dear mother, I hope she will see many more, and may she never have cause to complain of any of ther children, and may they (myself included) never fail in their duty and love towards her... We all dined together in the gun-rom, and after dinner, at about eight in the evening, we all went to a ball on the ice, a ball-room having been previously cut, with sofas all around, of course all made of snow. Flag-staffs were planted with the Royal Standard; two or three silk Union Jacks, besides other flags, presenting, I assure you, a very gay appearance. I must mention the sign-boards (for it was supposed to be an inn): one was “The Erebus and Terror,” and the other, rigged on a boat-hook staff and an ice-axe, presented the figure of Bacchus in one corner and Britannia in another, and something else equally fine in the others, but it puzzled my powers of discernment to decipher what they were intended to represent. But in the centre was painted “The Pilgrims of the Ocean,” and on the reverse (but I ought not to mention that as it was rather egotistical, but was copied from the ‘Quarterly Review’), “The Pioneers of Science,” at which Captain Ross was greatly amused. On the signal being given (a gun from the Erebus), the two captains made their appearance (under a rather irregular salute of musketry from a party of the men rigged as a guard of honour) and took their seats on a raised snow sofa, and soon after the ball commenced. Of course Captain Crozier and Miss Ross opened the ball with a quadrille; after that we had reels and country dances. Ices and refreshments were handed round, the former in the greatest profusion (the boatswain of the Erebus performing the part of host under the title of Mr. Boniface). You would have laughed to see the whole of us, with thick overall boots on, dancing, waltzing and slipping about, and all the fun imaginable going on. Ladies fainting with cigars in their mouths, to cure which the gentlemen would politely thrust a piece of ice down her back. But it would require a “Boz” [Charles Dickens] to give any idea of the ridiculous scene; it was beyond all description, and the best of it was not an ill word the whole time, although there were some very heavy falls and many a sore face from the blows of the snowballs. All was taken in good part, and, as the Vicar of Wakefield says, “What was wanting in wit was made up in laughter.” No accident occurred to me, without I may mention that a lady burnt the back of my hand with a cigar. In the next room some of the men were playing “Bell the cat.” At about one o’clock as the captains left we first pelted them with snowballs and then cheered them, both of which honours they took with equally good humour... I afterwards did a bit of a picture of the scene which has been greatly praised, and I have been asked to get it engraved and so ensured against lost, but there are two people to give their consent to that; but I shall wait till we get to England before I say anything about it, and then I might get two or three things lithographed if they are worth it...

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From James Clark Ross’s published account of the voyage. He is expectedly very formal and mostly scientific about his descriptions, since he was writing for a more official audience and not a family member, but does manage to mention the party: 

Notwithstanding the inauspicious circumstances in which we were placed, the arrival of the new year was hailed by us all with the same feelings of confident hope and cheerfulness which had animated our exertions throughout the last season’s operations in these regions: and although we had found the pack to extend much farther to the northward than o the former occasion, and were at this time beset in so dense a portion of it, that not the least hole of water could be seen amongst it, presenting to our view an apparently impenetrable mass, as far as the eye could discern from the mastheads of our ships, yet we were encouraged to hope that the clear water was at no great distance to the southward of us; for we found the ice in which we were enclosed continue to move to the northward before every southerly breeze: it must therefore have left clear water at the place it originally occupied, and from which it was drifting. We had already advanced two hundred and fifty miles through the pack; and from its breadth last season, not much exceeding two hundred miles, we could not but expect to be soon released, and enabled to renew our exploration at the point of the barrier where we had left off last year. Our observations to-day at noon placed us in latitude 66º 32′ S., longitude 156º 28′ W., we therefore crossed the Antarctic circle this season the same day that we did last year, and forty degrees of longitude, or about fourteen hundred miles to the eastward. 

A complete suit of warm clothing was issued to our crews, as a new year’s gift, and the customary double allowance of provisions and spirits was served out to them. As the state of the ice prevented our making any attempt to proceed, we remained moored to the large floe piece we had hold of, and the day was spent by our people in the enjoyment of various amusing games on the ice, which their ingenuity invented, and which was finally wound up by a grand fancy ball, of a novel and original character, in which all the officers bore a part, and added much to the merriment and fun which all seemed greatly to enjoy; indeed, if our friends in England could have witnessed the scene, they would have thought, what I am sure was truly the case, that we were a very happy party. 

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From the Memorandum Book of Sergeant W. K. Cunningham, Royal Marines, HMS Terror. Spelling, punctuation, and other quirks of grammar are his:  31st Friday New years eve: still fast: ice closed entirely round us: weather beautifull. In the course of the day built a nice appartment on the ice and put up a Sign of the “Pilgrim of hte Ocean” on one Side, with the “Pioneers of Science on the other. At 12 PM hoisted the Union and welcomed 1842 with three hearty cheers and “hands” splice the “Main brace.” Drank her Majesties health after which the Officers had a jubilee in the Pilgrim of the Ocean and both Ships companies repaired on board the Erebus and commenced dancing which was Kept up until an early hour and every thing went of with the best of good fellowship. 

It was a beautifull yet dreary Sight, to See the two Ships joined on the bosom of the deep with nothing in Sight only ice and snow and the Solitary Peterel or other Sea bird -- it reminded me of Scotts “Diamond of the Desert” in the Talisman. 

1st Saturday Was ushered in with joviality and hilarity; I hope it will go out so. Day very fine and a perfect Calm: no opening in the ice. During the day cleared away a four corner Ground and Skittle Alley on the ice also a ring for a jingling match and a ball room for the Officers. 

At 9 PM, on a gun being fired from the “Erebus” a Silk Union jack Royal Standard & Ensin was hoisted on the ice and a Royal Salute was fired by a party of Seamen with Muskets who were acting “soldiers” headed by Mr Oakly and presented a most Ludicruous and Laughable appearance. The Officers drunk H Majesties health in Champagne and the Ships Company spliced the Main brace and drank her health with I dont Know how many cheers. After which dancing commenced and was Kept until midnight when Sunday morning walked in and hauled down the colors, and dispersed the Company. The jingling match afforded a deal of amusement: we in all spent a very happy New Years day Considering where we were and every officer deserves credit for endevouring to make every one comfortable...

... 3rd Monday Fine: light breeze which increased at night with snow: ice opening a little to the eastward. The Evenings amusement on the ice commenced with jumping in Sacks: A Pig hunt and climbing a greasy pole for rum also a bear beat and other laughable &cs. A number of snow birds and several gigantic Peterel about: snowing all night. 

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Our much-painted polar hero also had photographic portraits done! I unfortunately cannot find any photographs of him as a young man, but he seems at least to have given in to the modern form of portraiture around age 60 (c. 1860-61)

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Two photographs of James Clark Ross near the end of his life, along with a portrait painted by Stephen Pearce after his death, based on one of the photographs.

Both photographs appear to have been from the same sitting, but I have yet to determine what they were meant for (books, etc.) Clearly one was printed for a form of public circulation, given the caption on the example from the National Portrait Gallery.

If anyone knows a higher-resolution version of the second photograph, I’d love to see it! It seems to be much more flattering than the first, from what I can tell.

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Bonus: he seems to have worn an amazing [carnelian?] signet ring, which you can see in the first photograph and the portrait. I hope to find out whether there was a sifnificance to it, and if it still exists somewhere! It’s interesting to me since it doesn’t show up in any of the earlier portraits - perhaps an heirloom he inherited at some point later on.

[indifferent-century]

Good morning, everyone! It has come to my attention that Tumblr is not letting me check any results for #JCRAppreciationMonth or even the general JCR tags, so if you post anything and no one sees it, feel free to send me a message so I can share!

Image: James Clark Ross as a midshipman (with the obligatory telescope-as-portrait-prop), artist unknown, c. 1818.