Francis Crozier

Francis Crozier was born in Banbridge, County Down, in Ulster, the northern province in Ireland. He was the eleventh of thirteen children, and the fifth son of solicitor George Crozier, who named him after his friend Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 2nd Earl of Moira. Crozier attended school locally in Banbridge, with his brothers William and Thomas, and lived with his family in Avonmore House which his father had built in 1792, in the centre of Banbridge.

At the age of 13, Crozier volunteered for the Royal Navy and joined HMS Hamadryad in June 1810. In 1812, he served on {{HMS|Briton|1812|6}} and visited Pitcairn Island in 1814, where he met the last surviving mutineers from {{HMS|Bounty}}. In 1817, he received his certificate as mate; in 1818, he served on {{HMS|Doterel|1808|6}} during a trip to the Cape of Good Hope.

Crozier joined Captain William Parry's second Arctic expedition to traverse the Northwest Passage in 1821. He served as midshipman on Parry's {{HMS|Fury|1814|6}}, which was accompanied by Captain Lyon's {{HMS|Hecla|1815|6}}. He returned to the North with Parry a second time in 1824, this time on Hecla. The journey resulted in the sinking of Fury off Somerset Island. Crozier was promoted to lieutenant in 1826, and a year later, he once more joined Parry in his attempt to reach the North Pole; ultimately a futile endeavour.

During his voyages, Crozier became a close friend and confidant of the explorer James Clark Ross. He was elected to become a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1827, after conducting valuable astronomical and magnetic studies on his three expeditions with Parry.

He was appointed to the frigate {{HMS|Stag|1830|6}} in 1831, and served off the coast of Portugal during the Liberal Wars, the country's civil war. Crozier joined Clark Ross as second-in-command of HMS Cove in 1835, to assist in the search for 12 lost British whaling ships in the Arctic. Crozier was appointed to the rank of commander in 1837.{{cite book|author=Smith, M.|year=2006|title=Captain Francis Crozier – Last Man Standing|publisher=Collins Press|isbn=1905172095}}{{cite book|author=Smith, M.|year=2010|title=Great Endeavour – Ireland's Antarctic Explorers|publisher=Collins Press|isbn=9781848890237}}

File:HMS Erebus and Terror in the Antarctic by John Wilson Carmichael.jpg. National Maritime Museum, London.]]

In 1839, Crozier again joined James Clark Ross on the Ross expedition, as second-in-command of a four-year voyage to explore the Antarctic continent in the ships {{HMS|Erebus|1826|6}} and {{HMS|Terror|1813|6}}. Crozier commanded Terror, and was appointed to the rank of captain in 1841. Erebus and Terror returned in 1843, having made the most significant penetration of the Antarctic pack ice and discovered large parts of the continent—including the Ross Sea and Ross Island, Mount Erebus and the Ross Ice Shelf.{{cite book|last=Paine|first=L. P.|title=Ships of Discovery and Exploration|publisher=Houghton Mifflin|year=2000|pages=139–140|url={{google books|J9W4QO1b_A8C|plainurl=y}}|isbn=0395984157}}{{cite book|title=A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions, During the Years 1839–43|last=Ross|first=J. R.|location=London|publisher=John Murray|year=1847|volume=2}}

Crozier was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1843, in recognition of his outstanding work on magnetism.{{cite web|title=List of Fellows of the Royal Society, 1660–2007|url=https://royalsociety.org/~/media/Royal_Society_Content/about-us/fellowship/Fellows1660-2007.pdf|publisher=The Royal Society|access-date=8 June 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160210192559/https://royalsociety.org/~/media/Royal_Society_Content/about-us/fellowship/Fellows1660-2007.pdf |archive-date=10 February 2016|url-status=dead}}

{{main|Franklin's lost expedition}}

In 1845, Crozier joined Captain Sir John Franklin as captain of the {{HMS|Terror|1813|2}} on the Franklin expedition to traverse the last unnavigated section of the Northwest Passage. Crozier himself was offered the command of the expedition, but, with "characteristic modesty", he deferred to Franklin.{{Cite ODNB|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/6840|title=Crozier, Francis Rawdon Moira}} After Franklin's death in June 1847, Crozier took over. His fate and those of the other expedition members remained a mystery until 1859, when a note written by Crozier and James Fitzjames, captain of the Erebus, was discovered on King William Island during an expedition led by Francis McClintock. Dated 25 April 1848, the note indicated that the ships—stuck in thick pack ice—had been abandoned. Nine officers, including Sir John Franklin, and 15 crewmen had died. Also stated was their intention, on 26 April, to set out on foot for Back's Great Fish River on the Canadian mainland.{{cite book|last=Savours|first=A.|title=The Search for the North West Passage|url=https://archive.org/details/searchfornorth00savo_0|publisher=St. Martin's Press|year=1999|location=New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/searchfornorth00savo_0/page/291 291–293]|isbn=0312223722}}

Inuit rumours collected between 1852 and 1858 indicate that Crozier and one other expedition member might have been seen in the Baker Lake area, about {{cvt|400|km}} to the south, where, in 1948, Farley Mowat found "a very ancient cairn, not of normal Eskimo construction", inside which were fragments of a hardwood box with dovetail joints.{{cite book|author=Woodman, D. C.|date=1992|title=Unravelling the Franklin Mystery: Inuit Testimony|location=Montreal|publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press|page=317|isbn=0773509364}} Note: Woodman was unable to track down the origin of these Inuit reports, and the builder and origins of the cairn found by Mowat are unknown. McClintock and later searchers found relics, graves and human remains of the Franklin crew on Beechey Island, King William Island and the northern coast of the Canadian mainland.

In 2014, the Victoria Strait Expedition found two items on Hat Island, in the Queen Maud Gulf, near King William Island; part of a boat-launching davit bearing the stamps of two Royal Navy broad arrows, and a wooden object, possibly a plug for a deck hawse, the iron pipe through which the ship's chain cable would descend into the chain locker below.{{cite web|website=pc.gc.ca|url=http://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/cp-nr/release_e.asp?bgid=1799&andor1=bg|title=Victoria Strait Expedition|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151004010237/http://www.pc.gc.ca/eng/culture/franklin/recherche-search/exp2014.aspx|archive-date=4 October 2015}}{{cite web|title=Franklin expedition ship pieces believed discovered in Arctic|url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/franklin-expedition-ship-pieces-believed-discovered-in-arctic-1.2759925|website=CBC|access-date=9 September 2014}} The expedition located one of Franklin's ships, preserved in reasonably good condition.{{cite web|website=Daily Motion|title=British ship lost in the arctic 170 years ago found|url=http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x25m7ya_british-ship-lost-in-arctic-170-years-ago-found_news|date =9 September 2014}}{{cite web|url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/lost-franklin-expedition-ship-found-in-the-arctic-1.2760311|title=Lost Franklin expedition ship found in the Arctic|website=CBC|date=2014-09-09|access-date=2014-09-09}} The wreck lies at the bottom of the eastern portion of Queen Maud Gulf, west of O'Reilly Island{{cite news|title=Finding of Franklin ship fuels Harper's new nationalism|first=S.|last=Chase|newspaper=The Globe and Mail|location=Ottawa|date=9 September 2014|url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/finding-of-franklin-ship-fuels-harpers-new-nationalism/article20508270/|access-date=10 September 2014}} and has been confirmed to be that of Erebus.{{cite web|website=pc.gc.ca|url=http://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/cp-nr/release_e.asp?id=2167&andor1=nr|title=HMS Eribus|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924070014/http://www.pc.gc.ca/apps/cp-nr/release_e.asp?id=2167&andor1=nr|archive-date=24 September 2015}} In 2016, a well-preserved ship matching Terror{{'}}s description was located in Terror Bay, off the southern coast of King William Island.{{cite news|last=Watson|first=P.|title=Ship found in Arctic 168 years after doomed Northwest Passage attempt|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/12/hms-terror-wreck-found-arctic-nearly-170-years-northwest-passage-attempt|website=The Guardian|date=12 September 2016 |access-date=12 September 2016}} The exploration of the wrecks continues.

File:Francis Crozier monument in Banbridge, County Down, Ireland.JPG, County Down, with polar bear supporters.]]

In January 2008, Crozier's home town of Banbridge hosted a memorial event, which included a service of remembrance and thanksgiving at the Church of the Holy Trinity, which was attended by more than a hundred descendants of Crozier and other officers of Franklin's lost expedition and those who searched for it, along with the chairman of Banbridge Council, and several Arctic historians, including Michael Smith and Russell Potter."Polar First Proves Great Ice-breaker", Banbridge Courier, 23 January 2008.

File:Francis Crozier memorial inside Seapatrick Church, Banbridge, County Down, Ireland.JPG

A memorial to Sir John Franklin and his men was erected by order of Parliament in 1858, in the Painted Hall of London's Greenwich Hospital. It was moved to Greenwich Royal Naval College's chapel in 1937, and was re-erected in the entrance of the former college in late 2009. At the service of thanksgiving on 29 October 2009, polar travellers and descendants of the expedition's crew celebrated their contributions.{{Cite web |url=http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories/article/6542_taissumanni_nov._20/ |title=Online review of recent Service of Thanksgiving |access-date=31 July 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120306024425/http://www.nunatsiaqonline.ca/stories/article/6542_taissumanni_nov._20/ |archive-date=6 March 2012 |url-status=dead }}[http://visionsnorth.blogspot.com/2009/11/night-of-polar-stars.html Online blog of Service of Thanksgiving]

Geographical features named after Crozier include:

• Cape Crozier on the eastern side of Ross Island, Antarctica
• Cape Crozier on the western flank of King William Island, in the Canadian Arctic
• Cape Crozier at the western entrance of the Bay of Mercy on Banks Island, in the Canadian Arctic
• Crozier Strait which lies between Cornwallis and Bathurst Islands, in the Canadian Arctic
• Crozier River, near Fury and Hecla Strait in the Canadian Arctic
• Crozier Point on Spitsbergen, in the Arctic north of Norway
• Crozier Channel, to the north of Banks Island in the Canadian Arctic
• Crozier Island in the Kennedy Channel, between Greenland and Ellesmere Island
• The lunar crater Crozier, located at 13.5° S, 50.8° E on the Moon's near side
• Crozier Place, a street in Stanley, Falkland Islands
• The hydrographic survey vessel HMS Crozier was named after him in 1919
• Francis Street in the suburb of Keilor Park in Melbourne, Australia
• Mount Crozier, a mountain in the French Kerguelen Islands

Francis Crozier appears as a character and the primary narrator of the 2007 best-selling novel, The Terror by Dan Simmons, a fictionalized account of Franklin's lost expedition, as well as the 2018 television adaptation, where Crozier is portrayed by Jared Harris.{{cite web |last=Andreeva |first=N. |url=https://deadline.com/2016/03/the-terror-anthology-series-scott-free-1201712908/|title=AMC Orders 'The Terror' Anthology Drama Series From Scott Free |website=Deadline |date=2 March 2016 |access-date=13 September 2016}}

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Category:19th-century Royal Navy personnel

Category:1796 births

Category:1840s deaths

Category:1840s missing person cases

Category:Date of death unknown

Category:Royal Navy captains

Category:Fellows of the Royal Society

Category:Irish explorers of Antarctica

Category:Irish explorers of the Arctic

Category:Irish people of Norman descent

Category:Lost explorers

Category:People from Banbridge

Category:Recipients of the Polar Medal

Category:Franklin's lost expedition

Category:Military personnel from County Down

Category:Irish officers in the Royal Navy

Category:19th-century Irish explorers