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Prints of the Resolute and Cronstadt...
Prints of the Resolute and Cronstadt...
Item # 582629
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December 20, 1856
ILLUSTRATED LONDON NEWS, England, December 20, 1856 The most noteworthy item in this issue is: "The Arctic Ship 'Resolute,' Presented To Her Majesty By The American Government", which includes a 6 x 6 inch print of the HMS Resolute, with approximately 10 inches of linear text describing the event (see images). Several related images (with text) show the Cronstadt, and the efforts to free it from the Arctic ice.
Also featured is a nice color print (see). Other prints and news of the day can be found throughout.
The issue is in very good condition and is complete.
Background (Source Wikipedia): In the face of rising concerns on the fate of the Arctic expedition of Sir John Franklin, which had left Britain in 1845 in search of the North West Passage and had not been heard from since, by 1848 the British Government began sending expeditions in search of it. Few existing warships being deemed suitable, six merchant ships were purchased between 1848 and 1850 and converted into exploration ships: two were steamships (Pioneer and Intrepid), the other four (Resolute, Assistance, Enterprise and Investigator) being seagoing sailing ships.
Resolute was formerly the barque Ptarmigan built on the Tyne, which was purchased on 21 February 1850 and initially commissioned into the Royal Navy as HMS Refuge, but was renamed HMS Resolute a month later. The ship was fitted for Arctic service by Green's Blackwall Yard, with especially strong timbers, an internal heating system, and a polar bear as a figurehead.[1]
During 1850-51 Resolute (flagship), Assistance, Pioneer and Intrepid, supported by a store-ship, the former warship North Star, searched the eastern Arctic under the overall command of Horatio Thomas Austin. The only positive trace of Franklin they found was the remains of his first winter camp on Beechey Island. Meanwhile Investigator and Enterprise were sent to search the Arctic from the west via the Bering Straits, but also returned unsuccessful.
Between October 1850 and March 1851, members of the Resolute crew under Captain Horatio Austin published at least five numbers of a handwritten newspaper, "The Illustrated Arctic News," during the wintering of the Resolute in what the editors identified as the "Barrow Strait." Upon the return of the Resolute to home port in England, the manuscript paper was printed in London in 1852. Atwood (1997) references extant copies of the papers at both the British Museum and the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge.[2]
[edit] The Belcher Expedition
After returning to England all six vessels were reprovisioned and sent back to their respective search areas, the four eastern Arctic expedition ships including Resolute and their tender North Star being under the overall command of Sir Edward Belcher. They crossed Baffin Bay westward in June 1852 while Investigator and Enterprise explored the Northwest Passage eastward from Alaska.[1] Each ship took a different route to search for evidence of Franlkin's lost ships Erebus and Terror. Only the Enterprise found any trace of them - a small quantity of timber on the eastern coast of Victoria Island, and was ultimately the only one of the six ships to survive the Arctic.[1]
Resolute became beset in the Arctic ice and wintered off Dealy Island near the north shore of Viscount Melville Sound.[1] In August 1853 a storm moved the ice flows with the entrapped Resolute eastward from the Dealy Island base.[1] Resolute was still beset by ice in the spring of 1854.[1] In May Captain Keller stowed the sails below, caulked down the hatches, and left Resolute locked in ice to lead his men in a hard march across the ice to reach other ships of the expedition. Their number included the crew of Investigator, who had marched overland to the Resolute after abandoning their own vessel in May 1853.[1]
The three other main vessels of Belcher's fleet were also abandoned late in August 1854 and the crews taken on board HMS North Star, which had been moored in a less ice-bound position off Beechey Island. Most were transferred to the relief ships HMS Phoenix and Talbot which arrived at Beechey Island just as the overcrowded North Star was about to sail.
The British Government announced in The London Gazette that the ships, including Resolute, were still Her Majesty's property, but no salvage was attempted.[1]
On 10 September 1855, the abandoned Resolute was found adrift in an ice flow off Cape Walsingham of Baffin Island, some 1,200 miles (1,900 km) from where she had been abandoned, by the American whaler George Henry, captained by James Buddington of Groton, Connecticut.[1] An October 1856 New York Journal relates Captain Buddington and crew's encounter:
“ Finally, stealing over the side, they found everything stowed away in proper order for desertion—spars hauled up to one side and bound, boats piled together, and hatches closed. Everything wore the silence of the tomb. Finally reaching the cabin door they broke in, and found their way in the darkness to the table. On it they accidentally turned on a box of lucifer matches; in a moment one was ignited, the glowing light revealed a candle; it was lit and before the astonished gaze of these men exposed a scene that appeared to be rather one of enchantment than reality. Upon a massive table was a metal teapot, glistening as if new, also a large volume of Scott's family Bible, together with glasses and decanters filled with choice liquors. Near by was Captain Kellett’s chair, a piece of massive furniture, over which had been thrown, as if to protect this seat from vulgar occupation, the royal flag of Great Britain.[3] ”
The Americans freed Resolute from the ice, re-rigged the spars and sails, and arrived at New London, Connecticut on 24 December 1855.[1] The British government waived all claims to the ship upon learning of its arrival in New London.[1]
Although most of the expeditions seeking the lost Franklin expedition before 1856 were funded by either the British government or by public subscription from within the British Empire, two expeditions were funded by Henry Grinnell, a New York merchant and shipowner who had grown up in New Bedford, with additional United States government assistance. Grinnell convinced the United States government to restore Resolute and return her to England as a gesture of "national courtesy". The United States Congress bought her for $40,000 and then had her refitted and sailed to England under the command of Commander Henry J. Hartstene USN, where she was presented to Queen Victoria on 17 December 1856 as a token of comity.[1]
Both Grinnell and Lady Jane Franklin had hoped that the restored Resolute would be employed for a further search for the Franklin expedition, but evidence found by John Rae having proved beyond any reasonable doubt that the men were all dead, the British government declined. Instead, Lady Franklin organised another private expedition under Francis Leopold McClintock, which in 1859 located the only written account of the fate of Franklin.
HMS Resolute served in the Royal Navy through the American Civil War and was retired and broken up in 1879.[1] The Canadian settlement of Resolute, Nunavut, is named for Resolute. In March, 2009, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown presented US President Barack Obama with the framed commission of HMS Resolute, and a pen holder made from the wood of another Royal Navy ship, HMS Gannet.
President Barack Obama sitting at the Resolute desk in 2009.
[edit] The Resolute desks
Main article: Resolute desk
The British government ordered at least two desks to be made from the timbers of the ship; constructed by cabinet makers at the Joiner's Shop of Chatham Dockyard. A large partner's desk was presented to U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880 as a gesture of thanks for the rescue and return of Resolute.[1] Since then, the desk - known as the Resolute desk - has been used by every President except Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Most Presidents have used it as their official desk in the Oval Office, but some have had it in their private study in the Executive Residence. Dwight D. Eisenhower was the first to remove it from the Oval Office, and it was returned to the Oval Office first by John F. Kennedy and then by Jimmy Carter.[1]
A second desk called the Grinnell Desk, or the Queen Victoria Desk, was also made from the timbers of HMS Resolute. This smaller lady's desk was presented to the widow of Henry Grinnell in 1880 in recognition of her husband's generous contributions to the search for Franklin. It was given to the New Bedford Whaling Museum in 1983, and is currently in their collection in New Bedford, Massachusetts.
Accounts of dubious provenance state that one or more additional desks were made from Resolute timbers. In fact a third desk was commissioned by Queen Victoria, though it appears it was never housed at Buckingham Palace. This desk was eventually used aboard the Royal Yacht Victoria & Albert. It remains part of the Royal Collection and is now on long-term loan to the Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth.
Category: Pre-Civil War