SIR JAMES CLARK ROSS:
Mournes Lady Ann

James Clark Ross (1800-1862)
British naval officer and polar explorer.

With the exception of Captain Frances Crozier, Sir James Clark Ross endured more seasons in the Polar Regions, North and South, than any other human being. Yet the death of Lady Ross was a shock from which he never recovered. 
Sir James Clark Ross and Lady Ross had a long courtship, mostly by letter.  They were deeply in love.  He named an island in Antarctica for her. They were married soon after he returned from his three great voyages to Antarctica.  When she died in 1857 he became despondent.  His thoughts must have darkened as he started to drink, overwhelmed by the missing of her.  Five years later, he was sixty-two when he died on April 3, 1862. A contemporary wrote of the romantic couple:  “I am bound to say that a more perfect state of married felicity could not be imagined.  Ah me, that it should prove so brief a span.”