John Ross (Arctic explorer)
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Engraving of Ross |
Sir
John Ross (
June 24,
1777 –
August 30,
1856) was a
Scottish rear admiral and
Arctic explorer.
Ross was the son of
the Rev. Andrew Ross, minister of Inch, near
Stranraer in
Scotland. In 1786, aged only nine, he joined the
Royal Navy as an apprentice. He served in the
Mediterranean until 1789 and then in the
English Channel. In 1808 he acted as a captain of the
Swedish Navy and in 1812 became a
Commander.
Six years later, in 1818, he received the command of an Arctic expedition organised by the
Admiralty, the first of a new series of attempts to solve the question of a
Northwest Passage. This entailed going around the extreme northeast coast of America and sailing to the
Bering Strait. He was also to note the currents, tides, the state of ice and magnetism and to collect specimens he found on the way. In April of that year, Ross left
London with two ships, and in August reached
Lancaster Sound, in
Canada.
There he re-examined the observations
William Baffin, a previous British explorer, had made two hundred years before. But Ross went no further, for he suffered from mirages that appeared as mountains at the end of the strait. He named them "Crocker Hills," and returned to England despite the protests of several of his officers. The account of his voyage, published a year later, brought to light their disagreement, and the ensuing controversy over the existence of Crocker Hills ruined his reputation.
This expedition failed to discover much that was new, and somewhat prejudiced the Arctic reputation of its leader, who attained the rank of captain on his return.
In
1829, Ross admitted he may have been wrong, and convinced one of his friends, Mr (afterwards Sir)
Felix Booth, to finance a second expedition. He left in May of that year, this time on a steam ship. They sailed past Lancaster Sound to a previously unexplored area, where their ship became stuck in the ice. The crew was stranded for four years, during which they explored the regions to the west and north, with the help of local Inuit. On one of these explorations, Ross found the magnetic
north pole on the
Boothia Peninsula.
In
1832, Ross and his crew abandoned their ship and walked to another shipwreck which had been abandoned by a different expedition many years earlier. A year went by before a break in the ice allowed them to leave, on that ship's longboats. They were eventually picked up by a British vessel and taken home. "This impressive experience, as well as the scientific and ethnological information gathered by Ross's team, brought him the renown that he had long sought."
On his return Captain Ross received gold medals from the English and French geographical societies, and various foreign orders, including a knighthood of the Pole Star of Sweden, and in the following year (
1834) received a knighthood and a CB in Britain.
In
1850 he undertook a third voyage to the Arctic regions, this time in search of the missing expedition party of Sir
John Franklin. He did not find them. In the following year he attained flag-rank. Upon returning, he settled in Scotland, and died in London in
1856.
His publications include:
Voyage of Discovery for the Purpose of Exploring Baffin's Bay (1819)
Narrative of a Second Voyage in Search of a North-West Passage, including the Discovery of the North Magnetic Pole (1835)
Memoirs and Correspondence of Lord De Saumerez (1838).
*
Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography OnlineReferences
*The Royal Navy in Polar Exploration from Frobisher to Ross, E C Coleman 2006 ISBN 0 7524 3660 0
*The Royal Navy in Polar Exploration from Franklin to Scott, E C Coleman 2006
