UK Edition
Letter shows anguish of families waiting for news of doomed HMS Terror expedition
When Captain Sir John Franklin’s ships vanished in the Arctic on a mission to discover the North West Passage, the story gripped Victorian England.
HMS Erebus and HMS Terror became trapped in ice and the 129 men on board waited in vain for rescue, before finally setting out on foot in a doomed attempt to reach civilisation.
A previously unpublished letter throws new light on how the story was followed back home, laying bare the fears of the sailors’ families.
The letter has been donated to the National Maritime Museum, where a new exhibition on the Franklin expedition will open on July 14.
It was written by the parents of John Diggle, a cook on HMS Terror, and sent to his ship in the vain hope of reaching him. It was returned, stamped ‘undeliverable’.
Mr and Mrs Diggle had read with horror that the ship was frozen in ice and the men succumbing to scurvy.
Dated January 1848 - - the letter begins: “Dear Son, I wright these few lines in hopes to find you and all your Shipmates in both Ships well… but our fears his wee shall Never see you again seeing the Account in the Newspaper how you have been Situated what with been frozen inn and having that dreadful Disorder the Schervey [sic].”
That same month, HMS Plover had set out in search of the ship. The letter went on: “We trust in God when HMS Plover reaches you our thoughts will be flusterated and joyful news it will be for us to hear on her Return to England that you and all the Crew are well. Please God it may be so [sic].”
The letter was donated to the museum by the Diggle family, and will be among hundreds of items on display.
The mystery surrounding the ships’ final resting place lasted until 2014, when Canadian researchers found the wreck of the Erebus on the sea bed. Terror was found two years later.
The sole written record of the men’s fate was a note found in a cairn on King William Island, written in April 1848. It said only 105 men remained alive and they were setting out on foot. None made it to safety.
Reports by local Inuits that the men had resorted to cannibalism were dismissed in England, with Charles Dickens writing that they would never have resorted to such “dreadful” actions.
However, forensic analysis of bones more than a century later provided confirmation, with some scraped clear of marrow and skulls cleaved open in order to reach the brains.
A lifeboat was also recovered with two skeletons on board. They had packed towels, scented soap, silver cutlery, and a novel.