Images taken in 1845 of Sir John Franklin and his crew on the ill-fated HMS Erebus and Terror – believed lost until recently – are to go under the hammer at Sotheby’s in London
Main image: Daguerreotypes of crew from Franklin's deadly expedition to the Northwest Passage. Photograph: Sotheby’s
Tue 29 Aug 2023 05.15 EDT Last modified on Tue 29 Aug 2023 05.36 EDT
Capt Sir John Franklin. A Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer, Franklin set off from Greenhithe in Kent in 1845 to find the Northwest Passage, a polar route to Asia. The images were taken by the Richard Beard Studio in Regent Street, central London, on 15-17 May 1845 onboard HMS Erebus three days before it was to set sail and never to return
Cdr James Fitzjames. An invitation as expedition commander was extended to 59-year-old Franklin alongside James Fitzjames as commander of HMS Erebus and Capt Francis Crozier as commander of HMS Terror
Lt Cdr Graham Gore. Produced when photography was in its infancy, these early daguerreotypes are the last photographs of 14 members of the expedition who the British sent to explore 311 miles (500km) of Arctic coastline to complete the charting of the Northwest Passage – a vital sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
Lt Robert Orme Sargent. Supplied with three years-worth of preserved food supplies, the Franklin expedition set sail from Greenhithe in England on 19 May 1845 with 24 officers and 110 crew
Stephen Samuel Stanley, chief surgeon. The daguerreotypes are hand-tinted, coloured with shell gold applied to the buttons, hat bands and epaulettes on the officers’ jackets
Lt Charles Frederick Des Voeux. After two years with no word from the 134 members of the expedition, Franklin’s wife pressed the admiralty to send a search party
Henry Foster Collins, ice master. The crew’s ample supplies meant the admiralty waited another year before launching a search and offered a reward equal to £2m today. Franklin’s name and the money led to many failed searches, with more people and ships lost than in the expedition itself
Lt James Walter Fairholme. In 1854, the Scottish explorer John Rae determined the fate of the expedition by talking to Inuit hunters during his survey of the Boothia peninsula for Hudson’s Bay Company
Charles Hamilton Osmer, purser. HMS Terror and Erebus became icebound and the men died from the cold and in some cases resorting to cannibalism. The news was leaked to the press and caused widespread anger in Victorian society
Lt Edward Couch. Lady Jane Franklin’s determined efforts to find her husband led to a further 25 searches over the next four decades, which although they did not add further information in locating him, contributed hugely to the mapping of the Arctic
Lt Henry Thomas Dundas Le Vesconte. In 2014 HMS Erebus was discovered by Parks Canada in collaboration with Inuit communities, followed by the discovery of HMS Terror in 2016
