Stag was a newly built frigate of 46 guns whose colourful captain, Edward Troubridge, was a wealthy peer, a Member of Parliament and aide-de-camp to the king. The ship patrolled the waters off the coast of Portugal, an awkward posting that was part guard duty and part diplomacy. Britain was Portugal’s oldest ally and the navy was caught in the crossfire of the country’s bitter civil war for the Portuguese throne. When Troubridge stepped down in 1832, the captaincy was awarded to Nicholas Lockyer, a highly experienced sailor with over 40 years’ service in the navy. In the event, Crozier survived the difficult commission unscathed, and both he and Lockyer remained with Stag until the end of 1835.
These were uncomfortable times for Crozier, now in his fortieth year and still only a lowly lieutenant. Progress up the ranks was unbearably slow and his prospects more than ever rested on the Admiralty’s plans for new expeditions to the polar regions. A man with an alternative career in mind might have resigned from the navy, but Crozier was still wedded to the sea. Then, in December 1835, he received an unexpected summons from James Ross. A humanitarian crisis had arisen and Ross wanted his friend to help resolve it.
A delegation from Hull whaling companies had sent the Admiralty an urgent note that eleven of their ships were trapped high above the Arctic Circle in the ice of Davis Strait. With more than 600 sailors and millions of pounds of shipping and cargo in serious jeopardy, the whalers urged the Admiralty to dispatch a relief mission.
Initially, the Admiralty was lukewarm, insisting that the trapped ships were unlikely to be freed during the winter months and that sending relief parties north was a waste of resources. However, public pressure mounted as word filtered back to London that some of the ships had been crushed and that a few survivors were stranded on floating bergs in Davis Strait.
One of the lost ships, it emerged, was Isabella – the ship that had rescued John and James Ross in Lancaster Sound in 1833. Isabella had gone down in May 1835 off the Whalefish Islands at the northern stretch of Davis Strait and the crew had somehow managed to find its way across the sea ice to another ship.
Captain Humphreys – Isabella’s former commander – led the passionate appeals for a relief mission and he urged the Admiralty to appoint James Ross to lead it. Ross readily accepted the job and the Admiralty agreed to commission a vessel and pay the crew on condition it was fitted out by the shipowners and manned by volunteers. Within weeks, a sum of £5,000 (around £280,000 today) was raised.
Ross was given a free hand to pick his crew and with virtually the entire navy at his disposal, he asked for Crozier to be his second-in-command. Ross, now the most experienced Arctic officer, selected the dependable Crozier ahead of suitably qualified men such as George Back and Dr Richard King, whose applications to join the expedition were turned down. Ross next hurried north to Hull to examine the available vessels and after careful scrutiny selected Cove, a well-weathered 380-ton whaling ship built at Whitby almost 40 years earlier. Cove was officially commissioned on 18 December and work began immediately to strengthen and provision the ship for the journey, a risky voyage through the stormy North Atlantic at the height of winter.
Crozier arrived in Hull on 23 December to learn that the Admiralty’s instructions were to take Cove to the edge of the ice in Davis Strait in search of the marooned seamen and to make contact with the Danish settlements on the west coast of Greenland where, it was hoped, shipwrecked survivors may have found their way ashore. As insurance against Cove itself getting trapped, the Admiralty decided to send as support vessels two navy bomb ships, Erebus and Terror.
Cove was on the brink of leaving Hull in the early days of January 1836 when good news arrived. Two of the missing ships – Duncombe and Harmony – had returned to Britain with encouraging reports that other vessels had also been released from the ice.
Cove, with 64 men on board, finally sailed from Hull on 6 January 1836 and immediately ran into powerful gales. One particularly violent storm to the south of Iceland lasted unbroken for five days and the ship’s bowsprit was wrenched off in the tempest. At the height of the storm, Cove toppled over and there were fears that the vessel might be lost. One officer remembered shutting his eyes, expecting to find the ship dashed to pieces when he opened them. The logbook dryly recorded: ‘A tremendous heavy sea running.’2
Ross and Crozier inspected the damage and decided to take the battered Cove back to Stromness in the Orkneys for repairs. While at Stromness, news arrived that several more whalers had been freed from the ice.
The North Atlantic winter storm had rattled even the hardened whalers on board and Ross and Crozier faced a minor mutiny as the crew refused to sail until later in the season. The mutiny was eventually extinguished and, on 24 February, Cove once again headed west in search of the trapped ships. By early April, Cove was working along the coast of Labrador before probing northwards along the edge of the pack ice in the Davis Strait. At night, the ship fired rockets and burned distinctive blue lights in the hope of alerting castaways camped on the ice.
On 15 May, Cove came across Undaunted, a Scottish whaler. Its crew reported that another of the trapped vessels – the Lady Jane – had escaped and arrived safely in Hull. Only William Torr, a 286-ton whaler from Hull, was still missing in the ice.
Cove zigzagged across Davis Strait in late May before sailing towards Holsteinborg on Greenland’s east coast for a planned rendezvous with the escort ships, Erebus and Terror. Seas were unaccountably calm, and Crozier was dispatched in a small boat to alert Erebus and Terror of Cove’s imminent arrival. But Crozier found no sign of the vessels.
Cove waited for almost two weeks for the ships that never came. Assuming that Erebus and Terror had sailed up the coast to the remote Whalefish Islands, Cove followed suit and made the 200-mile (320-kilometre) journey north. While there was still no trace of Erebus and Terror, the whaler Lord Gambier was encountered carrying a message for the Cove. The Admiralty – reassured by news that all but one of the whalers had returned to port – had abandoned plans to send Erebus and Terror to assist Cove. The message was reinforced a week later, in mid-June, when Lady Jane, one of the whalers to escape from the ice, emerged from over the horizon with new orders from the Admiralty that gave Ross full discretion to return home as soon he wished, the implication being that William Torr was lost. The navigable season was at its best, however, and Ross opted to continue the search.
Cove turned north again, entering the narrow Waygatz Strait that separates Disco Island and the coast of Greenland. Hampered by persistent fog, Cove edged onwards to Jacob’s Bight, where a fleet of almost 50 whalers was found waiting at the edge of the ice before resuming the hunt. But there was no word of William Torr.
Cove retreated through Waygatz Strait to continue the search south of the Whalefish Islands, where William Torr had last been sighted. Venturing further south, Cove crossed Davis Strait again and began exploring for signs of life amid the countless rocky inlets on the northern shores of Labrador. Breaking through the dangerous offshore ice in the last days of July, the ship anchored in a small bay near the Okak Islands, where Ross discovered that a handful of hardy missionaries had established a settlement. But nothing was learnt regarding William Torr’s fate.
The search by Ross and Crozier covered an extensive area of the Davis Strait – ranging from 55o–70o north – without finding a sign of the ship or crew. Early on the morning of 4 August, it was decided that nothing more could be done and the quest was abandoned. Three days later, Cove took leave of the ice and was driven home by strong westerly gales. The ship docked at Hull on 31 August with the news that the William Torr had vanished.
William Torr was officially listed as lost in October 1836, but the full grisly tale of the ship’s fate did not emerge until 1840 when local Eskimo bands divulged a few details to a passing whaler – a ship that had coincidentally been among the vessels trapped and released in 1836. According to the Eskimos, William Torr was crushed by ice off Cape Fry in December 1835, a full month before the
Cove relief mission sailed from Hull.
Captain Smith, the Torr’s skipper, led a small party across the sea ice in a desperate attempt to locate Lady Jane, but was never seen again. The 22 seamen left behind on the shore were unable to fend for themselves and all hands perished.3
Failure to locate the William Torr did nothing to tarnish the reputation of Ross. He was greeted with more public acclaim and offered a knighthood, which, surprisingly, he turned down. Amid the plaudits, Ross did not forget Crozier. To Ross, the journey had seen his friend mature into a first-class seafarer and he was determined to ensure that Crozier was promoted to a rank more reflective of his abilities.
A month after stepping ashore, Ross wrote a strong letter to the Admiralty in which he sang the praises of Crozier and urged his promotion forthwith. Employing unusually firm language, Ross warned the Admiralty that failure to promote Crozier might stain the reputation of the expedition itself. He spoke of Crozier’s ‘high character’ and the ‘high example of naval enterprise’ shown during the voyage of Cove.
The zealous and efficient manner in which he has fulfilled his trying and difficult duties makes me anxious that an officer of such high reputation and who has given so many instances of distinguished merit should receive that promotion which it has been the invariable practice of the Admiralty to bestow …4
Ross’ intervention paid off. In January 1837, Crozier was promoted to the rank of commander.
chapter nine
South
Crozier’s promotion did little to enhance his immediate prospects. He was still a junior ranking officer among a sea of unemployed officers and at the age of 40 his future was almost fully dependent on exploration. Another period of half-pay only underlined his predicament.
His uncertain career prospects echoed Crozier’s equally uncertain personal life as he entered middle age. After spending his entire adult life at sea, he had not managed to develop any lasting relationships and was no nearer to finding a wife.
Likeable and gracious, though a little shy, Crozier appears to have been unlucky in love and his affairs with women singularly failed to blossom. Years of long voyages away from home and the measly half-pay of an unemployed naval officer were an unattractive combination.
Typical of his relationships was a reported attraction to Jean Ingelow, then a promising young poet, which came to nothing but left behind an intriguing mystery. Jean Ingelow was a petite, attractive, dark-haired woman some 24 years younger than Crozier. Her pious, introspective poetry probably appealed to the serious side of Crozier’s character. Her biographer said, ‘Her work embodied the aims and ideals of respectable Victorians.’1
She recovered from a difficult early life – her father was a banker who went bust in 1826 – and became popular enough to be recommended as the first female Poet Laureate. She enjoyed the friendship of literary stars such as John Ruskin and Alfred Tennyson and it was Tennyson who once proclaimed, ‘Miss Ingelow, I do declare, you do the trick better than I do.’
It is not clear how far the relationship with Crozier developed. With a suitably melodramatic flourish of the age, one contemporary observer summed up the romance by concluding:
(It was) pitched in a minor key rather than in a deep-stirring movement of two hearts beating in tune. It was a harmony of kindred minds. Beyond this Cupid never ventured.2
Jean Ingelow’s poetry, however, included frequent references to a short and tragic romance with an unknown sailor who was later lost at sea. The doomed affair, said her biographer, lasted a year and was the ‘great love affair of Jean’s life’. She died in 1897 at the age of 77 having never married. In one of her poems, she wrote:
I took a year out of my life and story –
A dead year and said I will hew thee a tomb!
It is tempting to speculate that the lost love was Crozier, though there is no convincing evidence either way.
The prospect of bachelorhood for Crozier was not helped by news that James Clark Ross, his closest companion, had fallen in love and desperately wanted to marry. But the demands of exploration that had impeded Crozier’s attempts at building relationships now posed similar problems for Ross. Thomas Coulman, the father of his intended bride, Ann Coulman, had severe reservations about agreeing to his daughter marrying an explorer.
Coulman’s concern was well founded. Ross’ last major expedition to the Arctic had lasted four years and to his dismay, Coulman now discovered that Ross was planning to take command of a new voyage. After two decades of Arctic activity, Barrow and the Admiralty had turned their attention to the Antarctic, a less-well-known and potentially more risky area. Ross, now the most experienced explorer of the age, was the obvious choice to lead the mission. Thomas Coulman was uneasy, but approved the marriage on condition that it would be Ross’ last expedition.
The Antarctic expedition, regardless of the dangers, was a blessing to Crozier. After more than twelve months of inactivity and eager to serve, he wrote to Ross declaring that he was ‘ready at a moment’s notice’ to enlist in the venture. But Crozier’s plans were interrupted towards the end of 1838 when his mother Jane Crozier died and he was summoned back to Banbridge to help sort out family affairs.
The most pressing matter was to arrange for his three unmarried sisters – all older than him – to move to Dublin to be nearer their brothers, Graham, Thomas and William. Under Crozier’s direction, the three women – Rachel, Martha and Charlotte – were installed in a house in Rutland Square close to Graham Crozier, a Church of Ireland vicar.
The task took much longer than expected and Crozier, fearing that Ross might sail without him, became increasingly impatient. In March 1839, he remarked: ‘I am almost sorry I returned here.’ Concerned that he might be overlooked, he threw himself at the mercy of his friend. In a letter to Ross, Crozier said:
I have been, you may rest assured, very anxious on the subject, hoping each post to hear from you. Now, Ross, you must give me a line without delay as I conjured up in my mind a thousand things … However I am, as you know, a volunteer for anything that I can be useful in.3
He need not have worried. Less than a month later, on 8 April 1839, Ross was formally appointed to lead the expedition and one of his first tasks was to send for Crozier, inviting him to become his second-in-command. Together, the men would command the nineteenth-century’s greatest voyage of maritime discovery in two ships – Erebus and Terror – that, by an ugly twist of fate, would become synonymous with the worst disaster in the history of polar exploration.
Crozier was at the zenith of his career when appointed to the Antarctic expedition. Among those on active service, only Ross had spent more time in the ice. Crozier had been at sea for almost 30 years and was held in high regard by those who sailed alongside him. While he may not have attracted the recognition he deserved from the Admiralty, his standing among his peers was second to none.
For the second time in less than two years, Ross had the pick of the navy’s most experienced seafarers at his disposal and once again chose Crozier ahead of everyone else. Ross selected Crozier as his number two because he trusted the quietly efficient Irishman more than anyone else. Years of rigorous service in the Arctic had shown that Crozier was a level-headed and reliable commander who had earned great respect for his seamanship in the ice and who had developed into an authority on magnetism.
Crozier was also a stricter disciplinarian than Ross and was an unflappable officer who complemented his more flamboyant and often hot-tempered friend. Given their considerable mutual respect, Crozier and Ross made an ideal partnership. Ross, never extravagant with his praise, summed up his warm feelings towards Crozier when he scribbled a personal postscript on an official letter to the Admiralty. Crozier, he declared, was ‘a bit of trump’.
Ross immediately demonstrated his faith in Crozier by giving him full responsibility for fitting out the two expedition ships at Chatham Dockyard. He left everything to Crozier and rarely bothered to visit Chatham to inspect the work. Even th
e choice of crew was delegated to his willing and dependable second-in-command.
Ross was to take Erebus as the expedition flagship, while Crozier would command Terror. Although Crozier and Ross had not sailed on either before, they were familiar with this type of vessel, which belonged to the same class as Hecla and Fury.
Erebus and Terror were a matching pair of solid, three-masted, mortar-bomb ships, with roomy holds and shallow, flat-bottomed draughts that were considered perfect for manoeuvring through icy waters where depths might be uncertain. Designed to withstand the shuddering recoil of 3-ton mortar cannons, the stoutly built Erebus and Terror were ideally suited to a battering by the ice of the Southern Ocean. On the downside, the ships pitched and rolled badly in rough seas and were ponderously slow, lumbering along at little more than 4 or 5 knots.
The 326-ton Terror had an adventurous history, including one hair-raising escapade in polar seas. Built in 1813, the ship had seen action off the American coast and survived being run aground near Lisbon in 1828. After undergoing extensive repairs, Terror was pressed into service for George Back’s unsuccessful attempt to reach Repulse Bay in 1836 and came perilously close to being lost in the ice. Leaking badly after severe Atlantic storms on the journey home in 1837, Terror was beached in Lough Swilly on the north-west coast of Ireland, not far from the spot where Wolfe Tone, the leader of the United Irishmen, was captured in 1798.
In contrast, the 372-ton Erebus was more modern, having been built in 1826. But the ship spent only two of the following thirteen years at sea, mostly in the gentle waters of the Mediterranean. While Terror’s pedigree in icy seas was proven, Erebus was an unknown quantity.
Under Crozier’s watchful eye, the two ships were strengthened to withstand the crushing pressure of the ice, with watertight bulkheads and a double lining of copper installed around the keel. Each deck was doubled-planked and heavy-duty oak beams were fitted to reinforce the hull. As extra insurance against disaster, each ship would take a fleet of nine small boats, including a sturdy pinnace and four cutters.
Captain Francis Crozier Page 8
