Franklin Ship Found

[Rosella]

The Irish convict Alexander Pearce was pretty notorious. He was a cannibal who killed fellow convicts after escaping the penal colony. He was the original for the
cannibal convict in Marcus Clarke's novel about early Van Dieman's Land, 'For The Term Of His Natural Life'.

Jane Franklin was a popular figure in Van Diemen's Land as was her husband, and they did a great deal of good. When, in 1852, Jane chartered a vessel to look for the Franklin Expedition, the colonists in Tasmania contributed over £1, 600 towards the costs of her search.

[GUT]

G'day Jeff

Spot on.

Now if you want an interesting transportee have you ever stumbled across Dennis [some give the spelling with one "n"] Collins. He only lasted about 3 months in Port Arthur. He was originally sentenced to be Hung, Beheaded, drawn and Quartered.

[Mayerling]

G'day Jeff

At one stage all of Australia was called Van Dieman's Land.

I'm not sure that Wainwright was the most Notorious, but was certainly sent there, he was actually a very good artist and was also thought to be the subject of one of Holmes' cases.

Have you ever heard the reason he is said to have given for poisoning his Sister-in-law?

G'day Gut,

In the story "The Adventure of the Illustrious Client" Holmes talks of talented murderers, starting with "my old friend Charlie Peace". Peace actually was a gifted eccentric violinist on a one stringed violin (which might have interested Holmes, who played a violin). Then he says, "Wainwright was no mean artist." This has been supposed to refer to Thomas Griffith Wainewright's abilities as an essayist and a painter (he was gifted).

HOWEVER: Doyle has a habit of subtexting his comments in crazy ways. He misspelled Thomas Griffith Wainewright's last name, dropping the silent "e". We have "Wainwright", and that could refer to one of Charlie Peace's contemporary fellow murderers - Henry Wainwright, whose shooting and dismemberment of his mistress Harriet Lane was hidden from public scrutiny by a year of successfully planned concealment (botched only when Wainwright had to transport the dismembered body across London, and did so in packages in a hanson cab - an ex-employee looked into one of the packages at a severed hand, and ran for the police after Wainwright's cab). Henry Wainwright was a brush manufacturer, and Holmes' reference to him (if it was meant to be him) being no mean artist could refer to his nearly successful concealment of Ms Lane's remains, or a crack referring to his making paint brushes for a living. By the way, Wainwright's 1875-76 murder was called "the Whitechapel Murder" at the time, and involves dismemberment. However, Wainwright was hung (and his brother, who assisted, went to prison).

Thomas Griffith Wainewright was questioned while in prison, awaiting transportation for forgery, as to why he poisoned Helen Abercrombie, his sister-in-law (one of three or four poisonings he was suspected of). But nobody had charged him for murder, nor was he under sentence of death for murder (the bank who he forged upon was determined to send him to the penal colonies because it did not want blood on it's hands for forgery, still a hanging offense in the 1830s).

I wrote about this many years back, and it struck me that Wainewright's answer to the stupid question was meant to be an answer that was deserved by the person who asked it - a stupid response. He said something like, "I really don't know, unless it was her thick ankles!" Helen was a rather attractive woman, so the remark sounded churlish towards her. Then (around 1979) I read a Penguin paperback called "The Greeks" by a scholar named Kitto. It turned out there was an old Greek epigram or quote "I don't like girls with thick ankles." Now Thomas Griffith Wainewright had a classical education (he came from a wealthy family), so he studied Greek. I suspect, seething with resentment at such a stupid question as addressed to him by this fool while he was in a dangerous place like a prison (where any potentially damaging comment he made about unknown crimes could be used against him), he answered it with a variant on that Greek comment.
I still think that is what he did, knowing he'd befuddle his acquaintance by saying it.

Jeff

[GUT]

G'day Gut

Thanks for answering my question.

At one point, I believe, Tasmania was called Van Dieman's Land, and the most notorious criminal I recall sent there was the forger and poisoner and fop Thomas Griffith Wainewright. He died there in the 1840s or 1850s.

Jeff

G'day Jeff

At one stage all of Australia was called Van Dieman's Land.

I'm not sure that Wainwright was the most Notorious, but was certainly sent there, he was actually a very good artist and was also thought to be the subject of one of Holmes' cases.

Have you ever heard the reason he is said to have given for poisoning his Sister-in-law?

[Mayerling]

G'day Jeff

Lord Hobart was the Colonial Secretary. I think his first name was Stanley, but would need to check.

Forgot to add that one of the Electorates of Hobart [State think] is also named Franklin.

Hobart was Australia's second city, and is absolutely beautiful. The main penal settlement was at Port Arthur, also the site of an absolute rampage in 1996 that saw 35 people shot to death.

I love visiting Port Arthur, but there can be an eerie feeling at times. The brides PhD included the annexe at Port Arthur for children convicts that had been transported [Point Puer] so we had a number of trips and almost moved to Hobart a couple of times.

G'day Gut

Thanks for answering my question.

At one point, I believe, Tasmania was called Van Dieman's Land, and the most notorious criminal I recall sent there was the forger and poisoner and fop Thomas Griffith Wainewright. He died there in the 1840s or 1850s.

Jeff

[GUT]

G'day Jeff

Lord Hobart was the Colonial Secretary. I think his first name was Stanley, but would need to check.

Forgot to add that one of the Electorates of Hobart [State think] is also named Franklin.

Hobart was Australia's second city, and is absolutely beautiful. The main penal settlement was at Port Arthur, also the site of an absolute rampage in 1996 that saw 35 people shot to death.

I love visiting Port Arthur, but there can be an eerie feeling at times. The brides PhD included the annexe at Port Arthur for children convicts that had been transported [Point Puer] so we had a number of trips and almost moved to Hobart a couple of times.

[Mayerling]

Still a Street, Square and Wharf, named after him in Hobart, indeed I shall be on all three in a few weeks.

Gut, you can possibly answer a question for me. Who is "Hobart" named for? I know that "Adelaide" is named for the Queen of King William IV of Britain, and "Melbourne" for Victoria's first Prime Minister, and I suspect
"Perth" for the Scot city of the same name, but the only "Hobart" I know is the first Vice President of President William McKinley, Garrett Hobart, who died in 1899. The Tasmanian capital wasn't named for him. I'm also aware that Tasmania is named for Captain Abel Tasman, the seaman/explorer.

Jeff

[GUT]

Hi Rosella,

I'm sure you must be aware that when Sir John was notified that he would lead the 1845 expedition he was governor of Tasmania.

Jeff

Still a Street, Square and Wharf, named after him in Hobart, indeed I shall be on all three in a few weeks.

[Mayerling]

Hi Rosella,

I'm sure you must be aware that when Sir John was notified that he would lead the 1845 expedition he was governor of Tasmania.

Jeff

[Rosella]

I think this is a wonderful find. I'm Australian, not Canadian but I've followed the saga of the lost Franklin Expedition all my adult life. I understood the boilers in the two ships were distinctly different so maybe that has been identified. The Erebus was reportedly the ship on which Franklin died. They don't have hopes of the Terror being in anything but fragmentary condition if they are lucky enough to find it.

[MayBea]

The Inuit testimony, according to the Visions of the North blogger, claims the ship on which they often saw Franklin was the first to sink. Russell Potter goes on to say:

It's clear from this testimony that it was HMS "Erebus," Franklin's ship of command, that sank first -- which would mean that the ship discovered by Ryan Harris and his Parks Canada team would be HMS "Terror."

http://visionsnorth.blogspot.ca/

Potter says the ship can definitely be identified by its engine. But so far, there is no mention of the engine being used in the ID.

I have to wonder if the identification doesn't have something to do with the name Terror...

[Mayerling]

I have Woodman's book regarding the Inuit witness tradition. It is worthwhile plowing through (and the discoveries that have been made actually back up his contention that the Inuits knew what they were talking about).

[Dave O]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks very much for those recommendations, I'll add them. One book in particular I'd like to pick up is Dave Woodman's. Cyriax, from what I understand, wrote a seminal work but copies are hard to come by. I've read that Cyriax's transcriptions of the "Peglar" papers are on file with the documents themselves--a good thing as the originals apparently have continued to fade since the 1930s. A lot of the stuff from the 19th century is available off Google Books as well. I've added them to my library but I haven't read any yet.

Best,
Dave

[Mayerling]

Hi MayBea and Dave,

Dave, if you want to read some books on Arctic exploration that does (certainly) touch on Franklin and the disaster of the exploration (and his earlier ones), try Piere Berton's "The Arctic Grail", Josephine Mirsky's "To the Arctic", and a man named Neatby who wrote a good account of the Franklin tragedy. You might also look into Rupert Gould's fascinating (but now out of date) essay, "The Ships Seen on the Ice" in his book "Enigmas". Two vessels were seen on a drifting piece of ice by a whale ship in 1851 and appeared to be deserted. It was suggested they could have been "Erebus" and "Terror", and spurred on further expeditions seeking Franklin. Now of course, whatever they were, we know one of the two ships could not have been "Erebus". Still it was an interesting essay. Gould relied on earlier histories on Arctic Expeditions by a scholar named Cyriax.

Jeff
"

[Dave O]

Hi Jeff and Maybea,

I got hooked on this subject last winter and am trying to learn about it and get my library up to speed. In the meantime, I've been following some awfully good blogs devoted to the Franklin Expedition. Maybe you've already come across them, but if not:

Russell Potter's blog: http://visionsnorth.blogspot.com/

William Battersby (Battersby wrote a biography of James Fitzjames that's on my to read list): http://franklinexpedition.blogspot.com/

Someone working on a model of the Terror who seems to know his business. The most recent entry is a comparison between Erebus and Terror: http://buildingterror.blogspot.com/

In the comments section of his most recent post, Professor Potter and one of his readers refer to something they've heard about an artifact having been brought up--if true, perhaps that's helped with the identification that it's Erebus that they've found. Parks Canada sees to be releasing information very gradually, we'll see.

Dave