By Logan Zachary. October 29, 2023.
During the pandemic lockdown, I received an unusual email from the Royal United Services Institute in London. Their Librarian, Jacqui Grainger, had a new lead to tell me about: someone in the city of Bath believed they had a sailcloth from the 1845 Franklin Expedition.
A Franklin relic in Bath? I was aware of Bath only as the hometown of Captain Parry. I started pulling Franklin reference books off the shelf, but found not a single reference to the city of Bath — let alone that any Franklin relics might be held there.
The researcher that had contacted Jacqui was Tim Lunt. Tim is an archaeologist, and he was doing lockdown research in the collections of the “BRLSI”: the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution. Tim had contacted Jacqui because the BRLSI’s records showed the sailcloth in Bath arriving there via London’s lost RUSI Museum, which readers of this blog will recall that Jacqui is a historian of.
Reaching out to Tim Lunt myself, the story grew. He informed me that the BRLSI in Bath had more Franklin relics than just the sailcloth. There was hoop iron, a length of rope, a hooked nail...
And what really got my attention, something I had never expected to see in my life: he said the BRLSI apparently had a board marked “Mixed Pickles.”
{ ▽ “Mixed Pickles” in Bath. Photographed by the author, June 2023. }
“Mixed Pickles”, if it still existed, would be a Franklin rarity. The relic is mentioned in the list of everything Captain Penny’s men recovered on August 27th, 1850 — the day they discovered the deserted winter camp on Beechey Island.
{ Cask Heading marked “Mixed Pickles”. }
{ ADM 7/192. Photo by A. Freebairn. }
But then, despite being an original Beechey Island relic, “Mixed Pickles” went missing. I’d never seen it mentioned again in any relics inventory: not in Greenwich’s Royal Naval Museum, nor London’s RUSI Museum, nor SPRI in Cambridge, etc. For such a memorable name, no one ever seemed to have recorded seeing Mixed Pickles again.
Thus when Tim Lunt informed me that the BRLSI had a board with those two words on it, I knew immediately that these relics in Bath were likely to be genuine – and, that they were likely to be very early Beechey Island relics.
However their authenticity was not in doubt. As Tim Lunt further informed me, the BRLSI’s Franklin collection had something more: Goldner cans. An armful of them.
{ ▽ Goldner can with label. }
{ ▽ Can marked “Goldner Patent.” }
{ ▽ Can marked “Goldner Patent.” }
{ ▽ Can lid with seal, presumably of lead. }
{ ▽ Goldner can with label. }
But with the pandemic lockdown in progress, and archives around the world closed, I would have to wait to learn more.
* * *
{ ▽ The BRLSI building on Queen Square, Bath. }
In the summer of 2023, I was able to travel to Bath and study the BRLSI’s Franklin relics collection myself.
{ ▽ The rope. }
{ ▽ The nail, hooked and with flat tip. }
{ ▽ Bath’s Franklin relics. }
My guide was Curator and Collections Manager Matt Williams. With almost twenty years at the BRLSI, the presence of these Franklin relics was no revelation to him. Indeed, Matt recalls putting the relics on temporary display shortly after he started working there in 2004.
Nor is the fact that these relics seem to have been missed by the Franklin community a surprise to him. Matt explains that the BRLSI’s collections were effectively held in storage limbo after the Admiralty requisitioned their building for World War 2 — and did not relinquish it until 1959, with the collection then being much neglected until the 1990s. Even today, the BRLSI’s public gallery comprises just one room, unable to display more than a fraction of its collection. And with over 150,000 objects held in total, the BRLSI’s only member of staff caring for the collection is Matt Williams himself. The rest of the collection’s needs must be met with volunteers in and around Bath.
Unbeknownst to me, as Matt was explaining this background, the most interesting discovery of the day was about to come into view. Matt was showing me a large bag from the BRLSI’s Franklin relics collection. It was reinforced with rope, and noticeably caked with a dark soot or grime — perhaps coal dust? The same list of relics that had mentioned “Mixed Pickles” had also listed coal sacks from the island.
After examining it, I asked to see the other side. But just as Matt was about to turn it over, I saw him freeze.
{ ▽ The rope-reinforced bag. }
{ ▽ The rope-reinforced bag. }
If you didn’t see it scrolling past those photos, well, I didn’t see it either.
But Matt stopped and said that he could see something. I was looking at the spot he was staring at, seeing nothing there. It looked like a wave of just barely perceptible extra stitching. But as he traced its outline with his hand, the figure beneath came into view for me. “Oh... I know what that is,” I said, hearing my own voice slowing down.
I then said the words that anyone following the Franklin story over the past decade could now have spoken: “That’s the broad arrow.”
{ ▽ As originally seen by Matt Williams. }
{ ▽ The broad arrow, after a layer of soot was lifted away. }
It was large, about the size of the palm of one’s hand. I’d heard Douglas Stenton and Jonathan Moore each talk about finding Franklin Expedition broad arrows, two on the Erebus davit pintle and one on the Erebus bell. And now I’d just watched a museum curator find one right in front of me, appearing with a wave of his hand where a moment earlier I had seen nothing.
Matt carefully cleaned some of the soot from around the arrow, revealing more characteristics beneath. What had initially looked like extra stitching revealed itself to be, oddly enough, something like white paint.
{ ▽ The broad arrow, detail. }
{ ▽ The broad arrow. }
Matt then remarked what we both already knew to be true: this mark was not recorded in the BRLSI’s current documentation. Nor was it recorded in their historical records for these items, which went so far as to mention the numbers “154” scratched onto the bottom of one of the cans. The original 1850-51 searchers on Beechey Island must have noticed it. But then, with the graves of three of Franklin’s men lying nearby, they no longer had need of a clue signifying Royal Navy provisions. What would have been sensational to them just days earlier was now superfluous. And so, for more than a century, this large mark drawn between the ropes – perhaps the largest Franklin Expedition broad arrow yet – had hidden itself beneath the age, grime, and anonymity of this artifact.
And this is the story of Bath’s Franklin relics in general. The number and variety of the relics here make it one of the most significant collections of Franklin relics in the world. That they seem to all share the provenance of Beechey Island makes them even more interesting to study. Yet despite the particular focus on Beechey Island starting in the 1980s – looking deeply into Goldner cans just like these – this collection managed to stay hidden beneath the folds.
{ ▽ Goldner can with label. }
In hindsight, the relics had several times nearly come to the wider community’s attention. Remarkably, a few recently appeared on the BRLSI’s Instagram page — where a careful eye might have spotted that these Goldner cans were not quite the same Goldner cans commonly seen elsewhere online.
{ BRLSI Instagram, 4 Oct 2020. }
Most notable is what Jude Harris did in 2014. Jude Harris is the Exhibitions Co-Curator at the BRLSI. Prior to her work in Bath, Jude had worked alongside Ann Savours at Greenwich’s National Maritime Museum. Jude alerted Ann to what was in Bath, and Ann got on a train to come see the relics for herself.
And so this collection might have been published in the relics appendix of Ann’s The Search for the Northwest Passage — one of the first books I’d reached for to see if anyone else knew of Franklin relics in Bath. But Ann’s book was published in 1999, whilst her visit to the BRLSI with Jude Harris wouldn’t come until 2014. And so these relics stayed out of print.
As Ann Savours passed away recently (8 October 2022), I could not contact her for this article, and hear her thoughts on the collection. But on my visit to the BRLSI, Jude Harris produced an extraordinary memento of Ann’s visit: preserved notes of Ann’s comments on the relics, taken down by Jude during Ann’s 2014 visit.
* * *
In general, the immediate significance of these artifacts is that: if this large of a collection of Franklin relics wasn’t known and catalogued in Walpole’s book of relics, then much more may still be out there.
But these relics have a particular meaning that is still more interesting. The BRLSI faithfully and repeatedly records that these relics were old RUSI Museum exhibits. That museum of the “Royal United Services Institute” (RUSI) in Whitehall, London, was once the world’s primary repository of Franklin Expedition relics. The museum was sadly dissolved in the 1960s, sacrificed for the loftier goal of holding Whitehall political receptions in their museum space, the Banqueting House. There was an outcry in the press over this, but not enough to stop the dissolution. When sold to the highest bidder at auction, some of the RUSI’s Franklin relics are known to have travelled as far away as Alberta (Potter 2018).
{ ▽ The RUSI Museum, London. Author’s collection. }
I had tracked down as many editions of the RUSI Museum catalogue as I could find, and had read through the 1960s dispersal records of the RUSI Museum in the National Archives at Kew. It was evident that, even before the 20th century dispersal, some items had already gone missing from the museum. Some had landed at the Royal Naval Museum in Greenwich — but not all.
Where had the rest gone? Had they been given away, sold at auction, or simply lost?
This appearance of Franklin relics at the BRLSI in Bath is the first time I have seen missing expedition relics from the old RUSI Museum reappear since the Beechey Anvil a half decade ago (see Potter 2018). But the Anvil had been at the RUSI up until the 1960s dispersal, traceable in both 20th century catalogues and the dispersal records. By contrast, these Bath Franklin relics were never recorded in a RUSI Museum catalogue — indeed, they appear in the BRLSI’s records at the eyebrow-raising early date of 1894.
This unlocks the potential that other lost RUSI Museum relics have survived, if they, too, left the museum at such an early date. An example is the first Franklin relic ever found. Just prior to the discoveries at Beechey Island, a 12-foot rake was found across the bay at Cape Riley, along with sundry other relics. Upon returning to Britain, the rake became the first Franklin relic to enter London’s RUSI Museum. It was last seen in public at the 1891 Royal Naval Exhibition — and then vanished, never appearing in a RUSI Museum catalogue. In 2020, I had written that the rake would “almost certainly never be rediscovered.” Yet here in Bath, a new escape path for Franklin relics has appeared, one that even a 12-foot rake might have fit through.
{ ▽ The Cape Riley Rake at the RUSI Museum, circa 1878 (Hodder). }
If these relics were preserved at the Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution, then a relic like the Cape Riley Rake might still exist at another literary/scientific institution, elsewhere in the British Isles. Bath did have that one strong connection to the search for the Northwest Passage: it was the home of William Edward Parry, the Royal Navy’s greatest navigator of the search.
This suggests a method for searching for other lost RUSI Museum Franklin relics: What other cities and towns around the British Isles have a strong Northwest Passage connection, and might therefore have sought to relieve London’s RUSI Museum of some of its Franklin Expedition relics?
{ ▽ William Edward Parry, by Thomas Phillips. Author’s photograph. }
And while the Cape Riley Rake was first, the most interesting relic potentially now in play must be the Terror canvas. When Jacqui Grainger first alerted me that someone in Bath had an expedition sailcloth, my immediate reply was to ask if the word “Terror” was written on it. It was not. Multiple people have since re-checked the BRLSI’s Franklin Expedition sailcloth fragments for that word, but nothing has been found.
For the first time, however, we can be optimistic that the Terror canvas/sailcloth may yet be rediscovered. We know it went to the RUSI Museum, and we even know when: Alison Freebairn has found a receipt for the transfer in the National Archives in Kew, dated 2nd September 1852.
{ Receipt for the “Terror” canvas entering the RUSI Museum. }
{ TNA/ADM/7/193. Photograph by Alison Freebairn. }
In addition, we have several strong physical clues for identifying the Terror canvas, which can work even if the writing is now faded. Greenwich’s National Maritime Museum still holds a small slice of the same canvas, cut from the larger relic at some unknown date in the past. As well, in 1850 the Illustrated London News sketched the relic in considerable detail, showing us not only its unusual shape but also how and where the name “Terror” was written onto it. The article further tells us that the writing of “Terror” was done in charcoal.
{ AAA2037 © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London. }
{ ▽ The canvas marked “Terror.” ILN, 4 Oct 1851. }
{ ▽ A sailcloth at the BRLSI. Author’s photograph. }
It is possible that the Cape Riley Rake, the canvas marked “Terror”, and other missing RUSI Museum Franklin relics are all preserved together somewhere just like Bath’s Royal Literary and Scientific Institution. They could be in Weymouth, Dublin, Liverpool, London... even elsewhere in Bath itself.
* * *
Before I left Bath, Matt Williams made a careful observation about the BRLSI’s records: they never actually credited the RUSI, but rather the United Service Institution, the “USI” — without the initial “R” signifying Royal. If relevant, that would put the relics transfer date back to a shockingly early time frame: prior to 1860, when Royal patronage was granted by Parliament. I recall Jacqui Grainger and Tim Lunt making this same observation. I thought such a date too far into the past — as we’ve seen, the “Terror” sailcloth wasn’t even sent to the museum until late 1852. I replied to Matt that it could just be a clerical error, that single word “Royal” omitted out of habit. But Matt immediately disagreed, with an interesting double deduction: “Once you have the term ‘Royal’ in your organization’s title, you tend to not forget it — nor do you then carelessly drop that particular word from anyone else’s title.” The “R” in BRLSI stands for “Royal”. Indeed, a few weeks after hosting my visit, Matt Williams and Jude Harris were welcoming the Duke of Edinburgh.
Earlier this year, Alison Freebairn and I had written in Canadian Geographic about the Franklin relic taking part in the coronation of a British monarch. A sliver of wood from a barrel found on Beechey Island was built into the royal carriage that would take Charles and Camilla to Westminster Abbey.
After visiting Bath, I returned to the Canadian Geographic article, to the barrel relic sketch we had used as an illustration. I had intended to make the point that: it is possible, however unusual, that the barrel relic used in the coronation may have come from the same barrel of mixed pickles that Bath now holds a fragment of. But to my surprise, something else in the sketch now caught my eye.
{ ▽ ILN, 4 Oct 1851. Author’s image. }
I had studied this image for years. It is very well-known, as the entire page represents the first publication of Franklin relic sketches. For example, the sketch of the canvas marked “Terror” comes further down this same page. But having visited the BRLSI collections this summer, an object I’d never understood before came into focus.
There, amidst the jumble of clutter to the left of the barrel, is something we can now recognize: it is a rope-reinforced sack — with a large broad arrow drawn between the ropes.
{ ▽ ILN, 4 Oct 1851. Author’s image. }
{ ▽ The Franklin relics in Bath. }
{ ▽ The broad arrow in Bath. }
As the accompanying article states: “Four sacks, one of them marked with the Government mark (the broad arrow), were found, and filled with the mass brought away...”
“...one of them marked...”
The sketch shows the broad arrow pointing in the ‘wrong’ direction. However the Illustrated London News article states that only one of the Beechey sacks bore the broad arrow. Was Bath’s Beechey Island sack recovered by a different search party? Or did Matt Williams find a mark that even the Victorian searchers had missed? Or, did the ILN’s artist simply rotate that arrow — and thus the relic seen in the 1851 sketch is exactly the one surviving in Bath today?
{ Comparison, with additional side image. }
I’d looked at that sketch for years without comprehending what the object to the left of the barrel was. Today it is possible to study what may be the original – a Beechey Island rope-reinforced sack with broad arrow – in the collections of Bath’s Royal Literary and Scientific Institution.
The End.
– L.Z. October 29, 2023.
My thanks to Jacqui Grainger and Tim Lunt for bringing me in to their study of this collection.
My thanks to Matt Williams and Jude Harris for their expertise and a considerable amount of their time working with the BRLSI collection.
My thanks to Lou Morgan for an additional fact-checking review from Bath.
My thanks to Alison Freebairn for sharing her original research into the 1850-51 Franklin search and Beechey Island.
This article is an annex to The Cape Riley Rake (link), the first Franklin relic found. It overturns my argument from that article that the Cape Riley Rake wasn’t likely to ever be rediscovered.
* * *
Appendix 1: Parry’s home in Bath, and other miscellaneous notes.
The home of William Edward Parry, at 27 The Circus, is just up the hill from the BRLSI’s home on Queen Square, a five minute walk up Gay Street.
{ ▽ The Circus, Bath. }
{ ▽ 27 The Circus (at left), Bath. }
{ ▽ 27 The Circus, Bath. }
A commemorative plaque, more elegant than usual, hangs above the door of number 27. Bath is famous for its connections to Jane Austen, and the walk from the BRLSI to The Circus passes The Jane Austen Centre. The Parry family moved into this address in the same year that Austen moved to Bath, and Parry’s father Dr. Caleb Parry is mentioned by Austen in various letters to her sister. Both Parrys, father and son, are named on the plaque above the door to number 27.
{ ▽ Memorial plaque at 27 The Circus, Bath. }
Other artifacts related to Captain Parry’s expeditions are held by the BRLSI, such as an ivory model of a kayak, a snow shovel from a hut in 1823, a stone cooking vessel, and an Inuit-made watch pocket case (of these, I viewed the watch case during my visit).
While the BRLSI sack exhibited a soot that may be coal dust, I had no way of verifying this. Nonetheless, the BRLSI sack bears a notable similarity to the following images of Royal Navy coal sacks, photographed in 1897, with broad arrows visible on several of the sacks.
{ Navy & Army Illustrated, 26 Nov 1897, p. 72. }
{ Navy & Army Illustrated, 26 Nov 1897, p. 72. }
I mention in the main article that the broad arrow signified Royal Navy provisions. This is true, but only within the narrow frame of European artifacts in the Arctic, where it effectively distinguishes the Royal Navy from the whalers. The full meaning of the broad arrow symbol is that it denotes British government property, with a history going back centuries prior to the Franklin Expedition.
{ Beechey Island sack with broad arrow. }
In retrospect, this scene (above) looks as though we staged it for the comparison — including the detail of the “can within a larger can” off the right corner of each bag. I can attest that this was entirely coincidental; the sketch was identified months after the photograph had been taken. Nor does the bag naturally lay upright like that. I watched Matt Williams place a piece of foam beneath to elevate it. Why was it staged the same way in 1851? I can only imagine for the same reason that we did so in 2023: to make the broad arrow more visible.
If you are adept at reading Victorian handwriting, you may have spotted that the list of Penny’s Beechey Island relics did not say there was just one Mixed Pickles relic: it said that there were two.
{ TNA/ADM/7/192. Photo by Alison Freebairn. }
“2 (Pieces) Cask Heading marked Mixed Pickles.” Bath has one piece; like a locket, some other institution may yet be holding the other piece. It’s debatable whether the entry suggests that both items say “Mixed Pickles”, or if they were merely two pieces from the same cask, and only one had writing on it.
According to the Penny relics list, Mixed Pickles was found on Beechey Island on August 27th. But according to Sutherland’s book (Journal of a Voyage in Baffin’s Bay and Barrow Straits), Mixed Pickles was found the day before on nearby Cape Spencer. For the present discussion, it isn’t critical to resolve this issue, as Cape Spencer – like Cape Riley – was effectively a nearby outstation of the main Beechey camp. Similarly, a confusion exists regarding whether the “Terror” canvas came from Beechey Island or Cape Riley. In this case, the correct provenance is almost certainly Beechey, as Penny’s men found it rather than Ommanney’s. As the Cape Riley relics were discovered first – and learned of back in Britain a year earlier, thanks to Captain Forsyth and Parker Snow rushing the news home in 1850 – there was a lingering tendency in Britain to use “Cape Riley” rather than “Beechey Island” as the catch-all blanket term for the winter camp area. Many relic provenance descriptions bear this issue.
The card accompanying the “Terror” fragment in Greenwich refers to it as “Scrap of Sail Cloth.” Penny’s relics list refers to the original relic as a piece of “Painted Canvas.” The Illustrated London News uses the term “Canvas” (so does Sutherland in his book). I am not yet certain whether these distinctions (if that they be) may help identify the original relic.
Incidentally, if the BRLSI relics are indeed all from Beechey Island, then Bath has a larger collection of Beechey Island relics than even Greenwich. Greenwich’s National Maritime Museum has about a dozen (including those from Cape Riley), whereas the BRLSI collection numbers about a dozen and a half.
Appendix 2: The BRLSI records.
The salient details about the BRLSI’s Franklin relics collection are that: they were recorded at the BRLSI as early as 1894, and some have gone missing. No date has been found for the transfer.
The items once recorded but now missing appear to be:
3 pieces of wood2 pieces of worked wood1 worked wooden pin or tent peg1 piece of woolen material2 pieces of worked wool
However the last item may be in error, as the Mrs. Jennings list omits it, and it suspiciously is only one letter off from an earlier entry (wool vs. wood).
{ ▽ The Franklin relics in Bath. }
[In the photograph of the full collection above, the model of the ulu on the right is not part of the BRLSI’s Franklin collection. Rather it is a model of a copper ulu once donated by a Captain Peacock, that was subsequently stolen.]
The relics appear in two historic BRLSI catalogues: the 1894 Dymond catalogue and the 1927 Mrs. Jennings catalogue. The BRLSI also preserves two informative museum display card sets for their Franklin relics (as well as fragments, seen in the photograph above, from other sets).
The 1894 Dymond catalogue entry is unfortunately not detailed. It merely lists, on page 53, the entry: “Under Case. Relics of Sir John Franklin’s arctic expedition. 1845 United Service Institution.”
The 1927 Mrs. Jennings catalogue is more detailed. Under headings for “Arctic” and “United Service Institution 1845”, it lists the following entries:
Sir John Franklins relics—3 bits wood,1 iron nail(?) or hook,1 fire matrix,3 bits pitch1 Top meat tin,1 bit rope,2 bits wood,1 Meat tin showing soldering, cut at side, & on it scratched “154”,1 woolen material2 bits worked wood,1 pin or peg,3 tins,1 bit barrell “Mixed pickles” scratched on it1 fire marked tin,1 bit iron hoop,1 sack,1 Bale cloth,3 bales sail cloth
{ ▽ Goldner can with label. }
Similar to the Mrs. Jennings list is the undated single note card inventory, presumably once a cabinet display card:
ARCTIC EXPEDITION.LOST 1848.Presented by The United Service Institution.3. Pieces of Wood.1. Iron Nail, possibly used as a hook.1. Matrix of a fire.3. Pieces of Pitch.1. Top of a Meat tin.1. Meat tin shewing re-soldering, cut at side, on bottom 154 scratched thereon.1. Piece of Rope.1. Piece of Woollen Material [MISSING]1. Piece of Worked Wooden Pin. Tent peg.?2. Pieces of Worked Wood.1. Portion of a Barrel. Mixed Pickles, scratched thereon.3. Meat Tins, with label, Directions for opening.1. Meat Tin showing traces of fire.1. Piece of Iron Hoop.1. Strong Sack.3. Pieces of Sail Cloth.1. Bale of Cloth.–Sacking.2. Pieces of worked wool. [MISSING]
Finally there is a further set of cabinet display cards, one for the overall set and eighteen for individual entries. Their numbered order shows a similarity to the other display card and the Mrs. Jennings list.
{ ▽ BRLSI display cards set. }
The current BRLSI records have eighteen entries with modern catalogue numbers assigned.
AM249. Piece of sail-cloth.AM255. Iron nail used as fish hook.AM257. 1 of 2 pieces of sail cloth.AM258. 1 of 2 pieces of sail cloth.AM259. Piece of rope.AM260. Lid of food tin.AM260A. [1 of] 5 food tins.AM260B. [1 of] 5 food tins.AM260C. [1 of] 5 food tins.AM260D. [1 of] 5 food tins.AM260E. [1 of] 5 food tins.AM261. Piece of iron hoop.AM262. Portion of barrel lid with ‘Mixed Pickles’ scratched thereon.AM270. ‘3 Pieces of pitch’.AM271. Matrix from a fire.AM272. Model of knife.AM273. Piece of sacking.AM291. Large canvas bag (‘Strong Bag’).
Bibliography.
Freebairn, Alison.
2020. The Beechey Island Memorial Board at the Science Museum. Finger-Post.blog, 1 August 2020 (link). [It is worthwhile to compare this Franklin relics collection to the BRLSI’s, in terms of provenance (RUSI vs. auction), identifiability by name (“Mixed Pickles”) and by sketch (ILN) and by brand of maker (Goldner), etc. – L.Z.]
Freebairn, Alison.
2021. Robert Goodsir and the Franklin Graves on Beechey Island. Finger-Post.blog, 4 January 2021 (link).
Freebairn, Alison & Zachary, Logan.
2023. The surprising pieces of history inside King Charles III’s coronation carriage. Canadian Geographic, 2 May 2023 (link).
Hodder, Edwin.
1878. Heroes of Britain in Peace and War, Vol. 1. [The source for the sketch of the Cape Riley Rake used in this article. See Zachary & Freebairn 2020, Appendix 8.]
Potter, Russell A.
2018. Lost and Found: The Beechey Island Anvil Block. Visions of the North, 27 September 2018 (link).
Potter, Russell A.
2020. Eric Harvie and the Franklin relics. Visions of the North, 24 April 2020 (link).
Savours, Ann.
1999. The Search for the North West Passage.
Walpole, Garth.
2017. Relics of the Franklin Expedition: Discovering Artifacts from the Doomed Arctic Voyage of 1845 (Edited by Russell A. Potter).
Zachary, Logan.
2020a. Disposal Records of the RUSI Museum. illuminator.blog, X April 2020 (link).
Zachary, Logan.
2020b. The RUSI Acquisitions List, 1850-1960. illuminator.blog, 16 May 2020 (link).
Zachary, Logan & Freebairn, Alison.
2020. The Cape Riley Rake. illuminator.blog, 3 December 2020 (link).
Miscellaneous items:
4 October 1851. The Illustrated London News. Page 409. [The source of the relic sketches discussed in this article. The images used are photographed from my own collection.]
26 Nov 1897. Navy & Army Illustrated. Page 72. [The source of the coal sack photographs in Appendix 1. The full article is called “How A Ship Is Coaled,” starting on page 70.]
The four historical sources at the BRLSI are discussed in Appendix 2. The full name on the cover of the 1894 Dymond catalogue is, “Bath Literary and Scientific Institution. Catalogue of Antiquities, Ethnological Specimens and Curiosities in the Eastern Gallery.” The first page reads, “Dymond’s Catalogue 1894.”, with an index note at the top: “1996.L.6189”. The full name on the cover of the 1927 Mrs. Jennings catalogue is, “Mrs. Jennings’ Catalogue for the East and South-West Galleries the Lecture-Hall and the Vestibule 1927.”
The list of the relics found by Captain Penny at Beechey Island (and nearby Cape Spencer) is in Arctic Blue Book 1852c, page 120. Alison Freebairn found a handwritten version in ADM 7/192 at The National Archives in Kew, a detail of which is seen in this article. The donation certificate for the Terror canvas and other relics to the RUSI Museum, also found by Alison Freebairn, is in ADM 7/193 at The National Archives in Kew.
The surviving fragment of the canvas/sailcloth marked ‘Terror’ is held by the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, artifact AAA2037 (link).
The NMM also has an example of a surviving Franklin Expedition barrel, recovered by the Schwatka search, artifact AAA2278 (link).
I recently obtained the following receipt for a donation into the RUSI Museum, dated 1863 — and notably using the word “Royal”.
{ ▽ RUSI Museum donation receipt, 1863. }
– L.Z. October 29, 2023.
All photographs by the author unless noted otherwise. All images marked with the “▽” deck prism symbol can be clicked to download at high resolution.