TITLE: SIR JAMES CLARK ROSS BREAKS HIS PRENUPTIAL AGREEMENT
2002 16 X 20 INCHES
James Clark Ross:
1800-1862, British explorer and naval officer.
‘I am willing and desirous
to take command of any expedition their Lordships
may contemplate, sending to the relief of the expedition under the command
of
Captain Sir John Franklin.’
A letter from Sir James Clark Ross to the Admiralty, November
8, 1847
Ross was appointed to lead an expedition to Antarctica,
(1839-43). He
discovered the Ross Sea and followed the Ross Ice Shelf for hundreds of
miles. He
returned home to great acclaim and a knighthood. A year later he married
Ann
Coulman. One of the conditions set forth by the bride's father was that
Ross
never again venture to the polar regions.
In 1845 his friend Sir John Franklin set sail for the
Arctic in Ross’
Antarctic ships, Erebus and Terror. None of the 129 men aboard came back
alive. In
1847 a massive search and rescue was organized to hunt for Franklin and
the
two ships. When all hope was lost, Lady Jane Franklin persisted in her
efforts
to find her husband. Her powers of persuasion won the support of the British
Admiralty, the President of the United States and the Czar of Russia.
She
appealed to Ross to aid in the search, and beseeched Lady Ross to let
her husband
go, as he was the man most likely to succeed. Ross obtained consent from
his
wife and his father-in-law to break his prenuptial vow, return to Arctic
waters and look for Franklin. He failed. Franklin and the two ships were
never found.
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