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This batch of Ellies are the 24 year old Able Seamen from HMS Terror & Erebus, 1845.

Samuel Crispe, from Terror

Robert Johns, from Ereb^s

William Mark, from Erebus

Francis Pocock, from Erebus. I wonder if he pronounced his name, as I would, Poke-ock, or perhaps another way - a suburb of my city is called Cockburn & people are resolute on saying it "Co-burn".

John Strickland, from Erebus.

John Bates, from Terror

William (or David, sources vary) Sims, from Terror.

#the terror #crafts #knitting #miniature knitting #samuel crispe #robert johns #william mark #francis pocock #john strickland #john bates #william sims #david sims

My newest update from the Extremely Exciting Study of the Hartnell Family ([cue fanfare]) is that there may not have been two Hartnells on the HMS Erebus.

There may have been three.

So, it’s pretty well-established that John and Thomas Hartnell were the only known siblings on the Franklin Expedition. We know that—we have records and an embroidered shirttail to prove it.

Okay, got that. Now, if you’re like me and you spend all of your precious and scant free time researching a relatively middle-class family with virtually no social bearing and very few records, then you’re exactly the kind of person who grasps at pretty much any straw you can. One of those straws came yesterday, when I was doing my favorite hobby of trawling through the Hartnell family tree like someone going through a refrigerator and expecting something new to appear.

But it did, lads.

Now up on the tippity top is Mary Ann Hartnell. Not to be confused with her own daughter—indeed one Mary Ann Hartnell Strickland—or this gal:

who is the Hartnell brothers’ younger sister. If anything, the Hartnells were expert name-recyclers (see: John Hartnell, John Hartnell, John Hartnell, and John Hartnell). No, the above Mary Ann Hartnell was the Hartnell brothers’ aunt, as in their father’s sister. Mary Ann Hartnell (who just went by “Ann” most of the time) married Joseph Strickland, lived in Portsmouth, and had a happy little family with four lovely children with recycled names, the youngest of which was a boy named John.

And John Strickland. Where have we seen that name before? Oh, yeah.

On the Erebus as an AB.

Now that could just be coincidence, right? There’s plenty of 20-somethings on this ship, and there can’t only be one John Strickland in all of Great Britain. Right, except for when you dig in a little bit deeper?

That’s from Ralph Lloyd-Jones’ paper from the Polar Record, and the description itself comes from the HMS Volage’s Description Book (for the further record and a correction since 2005 when the article was written, John Strickland was 24 years old). You know who else joined the Volage for 1838-41?

Yyyyyyep. Thomas Hartnell himself, who joined on as an Ordinary Seaman. And furthermore, who joins the Volage after it comes back in 1841?

John Hartnell, also as an Ordinary Seaman, apparently sick of making shoes as his day job.

So we have a potential family shindig here! We’ve established that Strickland is the same age as Thomas Hartnell and served at the same time on the same ship, as well as hailing from the same town as Mary Ann Hartnell, Thomas and John’s aunt. And while I’m still not 100% sure of the connection (I’m, like, 90% sure), there’s one last piece of evidence that I think is the most striking.

John Hartnell, Thomas Hartnell, and John Strickland signed onto the Erebus together. Or, at least, one right after another. As of yet, I haven’t been able to see the dates on which they signed on, but I think it’s telling that John Strickland and the Hartnells keep appearing together across multiple records, only to end up together on this one as well. And on top of all that, John Strickland has his first relation (i.e. the one who gets his pay should he die) is his mother, Ann.

If this is the case, it also helps to answer one of the questions of John Hartnell’s remains. Something that was noted during his 1986 exhumation was that compared to the burials of John Torrington and William Braine, a lot of care was put into John’s appearance. His hair had been trimmed and combed, beard shaved, nails cleaned and cut, and he had been dressed in three layered shirts (one of which was, as mentioned, his brother’s) and a wool hat; he was then laid out on a folded blanket with his head on a hand-sewn pillow stuffed with wood shavings. Someone had taken the time to make him as presentable as possible, and while it was assumed that it could be owed to his brother and his shipmates who presumably liked him, I’m starting to consider the possibility that this could have also been owed to having two family members on the ship.

Now, I can’t confirm this 100% yet considering the fact that the documents I’d need are very much so in England and I very much so am not there, but I think the starting point of evidence is very intriguing, even if it makes me feel like this:

(Shoutout to the art glories of @iceboundterror - hiiii!)

Hopefully I can confirm all this at some point! It’d be interesting on the basis that there was actually a family on Erebus, and to a degree, cast an even more humanizing light on these people.

#long post #franklin expedition #john hartnell #thomas hartnell #john strickland #hms erebus #hartnell family #listen LISTEN i know it's not that exciting in the grand scheme but DUDE #COUSINS????#MAYBE??????