{ ▽ Miss Anstruther’s photographs album, St. Andrews University. }
In July of 2018, Goodsir researcher Allison Lane found a sketch of Harry Goodsir (below) in the collections of the University of St. Andrews, Scotland, that until then hadn’t been known to the Franklin Expedition community.
{ Three depictions of Harry Goodsir. }
An accompanying historical note stated that the sketch of Harry had been made the night before the Franklin Expedition sailed.
Recently, Lane has made a further discovery in the collections of St. Andrews: an entirely new identification of two unnamed portraits, that Lane believes may be showing us two of Harry Goodsir’s siblings.
The photograph album is inscribed “Miss Anstruther’s book,” which the University believes refers to Charlotte Lucy Anstruther (the Goodsirs’ father had been the Anstruthers’ family doctor in rural Fife). Paging through the recently digitized album, Allison Lane recognized by intermittent name tags that the album was organized by families.
{ Miss Anstruther’s photographs album, pages 22 & 23. }
The image above shows page 22 (top), and the following page 23 (bottom). In the lower right we see Harry’s eldest brother John, correctly labeled as “Professor Goodsir.” This image is well known from published prints, but it is rare to see the original photograph itself (Whitfield 2003).
Having understood that the portraits were grouped by families, Lane immediately recognized the significance for the preceding two photographs on page 22.
{ The portraits on page 22. }
St. Andrews dates this album to circa 1860–1870. From Lane’s research into the family of Harry Goodsir, she knew that in this era, there should be exactly two other Goodsir siblings living in Scotland: Harry’s 2nd eldest brother Joseph, and his immediate elder sister Jane.
But Lane also understood the greater significance of this potential Joseph Goodsir: that he is a dead ringer for a portrait of a “Mystery Goodsir” long known to researchers of the family.
{ The page 22 man and the false John Goodsir. }
The above portrait (right) shows the unidentified mystery man, seated at a desk. He is labeled “John Goodsir”, a dubious identification that has nonetheless been repeated in a recent publication (Gardner 2015). The portrait appears in a scrapbook attributed to Harry’s younger brother Robert — but those who know the family portraits agree that this “John Goodsir” cannot have been labeled correctly. The face does not resemble the heavier features seen in several other known portraits of John. As well, while at least one sibling is known to have worn spectacles, John was never depicted as wearing them.
As the scrapbook related to Harry’s younger brother Robert Goodsir, the best guess then was that this man could be Robert himself. But at a stroke, Lane’s identification in the St. Andrews photo album changes the most likely identification of the mystery man to the other older brother, Joseph Goodsir. Robert’s scrapbook, then, did not contain portraits of only one brother and himself: it showed – perhaps more logically – his two brothers that had survived into middle age.
That identification leaves the photograph of the woman in the St. Andrews album who was also on page 22. In that position, her card is slotted in immediately behind John Goodsir on the following page.
{ The woman on page 22. }
This woman was, in fact, the very first portrait that made Allison Lane’s eyebrows go up, before Joseph and before even seeing John on the next page. She immediately was struck by the unknown woman’s resemblance to John Goodsir.
For myself, I can say that as someone who is principally familiar with Harry Goodsir and the Franklin Expedition, my reaction upon seeing her was that: this woman is the halfway point between Harry and John. She has the Goodsir face.
{ John and Harry bookending the potential Joseph and Jane. }
The only other Goodsir sibling alive in this era would be Robert. But after 1853, following two failed Arctic searches for Harry, Robert had moved to Australia. He wouldn’t return until 1882. Thus, even without the match to the mystery man in Robert’s scrapbook, the date of the photo album and Lane’s understanding of the Goodsir family’s history shows that the most logical identification for these portraits would be the siblings Joseph and Jane Goodsir.
As such, we now likely have portrait photographs for the four eldest Goodsir siblings. In order by age: John, Joseph, Jane, and Harry.
Allison Lane also notes that the “Miss Taylor” portrait (seen in the image near the start of this article), which is nestled in amongst these portraits in the St. Andrews photo album, has a likely identity: Anne Taylor, a spinster aunt who lived for a time with John, Joseph, and Jane. She appears sequentially between John Goodsir and these two new portraits.
When removed from the album, the reverse side of these portraits reveals the studio photographer and their address in Edinburgh. Miss Taylor’s photographer is listed as J. Moffat at 103 Princes Street. The three sibling portraits are all by E.W. Dallas at 125 Princes Street. Both addresses for these photographers date all four portraits to roughly the late 1860s (see Stubbs 2023), which is in line with St. Andrews’ “circa 1860–1870” dating for the overall album. Jane’s portrait is numbered 7752, while – interestingly – John and Joseph’s numbers are sequential: 8914 and 8915 respectively (though written in a different hand).
It is unsurprising that Jane’s portrait would appear first amongst the Goodsirs, and unlabeled. Correspondence still exists between Charlotte Lucy Anstruther (the owner of the photo album) and Jane Goodsir, testifying to their friendship. In the letter below – as well as others held in this collection at St. Andrews – Charlotte signs off to Jane by asking her to “give my best love to Mr. Joseph.” With this friendship, it isn’t surprising that Jane and Joseph didn’t require name tags in Charlotte’s photo album.
{ Photograph by Alison Freebairn. }
* * *
“We need not speak of our terrible anxiety about you, and indeed all in your Ships, the length of time you have been away has put the whole country in a state of the greatest distress...”[Jane Goodsir to Harry Goodsir, 26 April 1849.]
The collection May We Be Spared To Meet On Earth contains several letters between Jane, Joseph, and Harry, including the 1849 letter (quoted above) from Jane to Harry, written while their younger brother Robert was in the Arctic searching for him.
“Are you not afraid to die?”“No.”[The Student’s Manual, by Rev. John Todd.]
It was Jane Goodsir that identified The Student’s Manual pages – still folded open to a particular passage (above) when given by the Inuit to John Rae – as having belonged to her brother Harry.
“I have the strongest impression, that the “Student’s Manual” spoken of in the Illustrated London News, as among the Franklin Relics, had belonged to poor Harry. Aunt is of the same opinion, and the more I consider the passage, the stronger my impression becomes, that it was his.”[Jane Goodsir letter to her brother John (quoted in Freebairn 2022a).]
The Goodsirs’ eldest sibling John Goodsir, the professor seen at the start of this article, is buried in Edinburgh’s Dean Cemetery. His gravemarker is a grey obelisk, twinned to an earlier grey obelisk next to it for the grave of the naturalist Edward Forbes, reflecting in death their close relationship in life (Macintyre et al. 2021).
{ ▽ Twin obelisks for John Goodsir and Edward Forbes. }
Though not mentioned on the gravestone, Allison Lane and fellow Goodsir researcher Alison Freebairn had found newspaper reports stating that Joseph Goodsir had been buried with his brother John. This was surprising, as the gravemarker’s inscription bears no mention of Joseph. In 2018, Freebairn confirmed that the brothers are indeed in the same grave together by consulting the records held at Dean Cemetery.
Thus, John Goodsir’s obelisk is also the monument marking Joseph’s grave.
{ ▽ Profile of John Goodsir on his grave’s obelisk. }
{ ▽ John Goodsir’s obelisk inscription. }
{ ▽ Goodsir and Forbes twin obelisks from a distance (at right). }
Robert Goodsir, the younger brother who searched for Harry, is buried elsewhere in Dean Cemetery (Freebairn 2022b). Harry Goodsir is believed to be the Franklin Expedition sailor entombed in the chapel of Greenwich Hospital, London (Mays et al. 2011). Jane Ross Goodsir was buried in Carnbee churchyard (a village north of the Firth of Forth, near St. Andrews), along with the Goodsirs’ mother Elizabeth, though Jane’s name is not on the surviving memorials there.
{ ▽ 11 Danube Street (the blue door), Edinburgh. }
Jane and Joseph lived together later in life at 11 Danube Street in Edinburgh. Their home is still there.
But they are not polar bears. Instead of Man Proposes, God Disposes, this is Alpine Mastiffs Reanimating a Distressed Traveler. In this scene, nature’s beasts endeavor to save the life of the young man overwhelmed by snow and cold.
* * *
{ ▽ Alpine Mastiffs Reanimating a Distressed Traveler by Landseer. }
{ Taken from Miss Anstruther’s photographs album. }
The End.
– L.Z. May 20, 2025.
* * *
Bibliography.
Author citations:
Freebairn 2022a.
Freebairn, Alison.
2022. “Carried for long, or to the last” – Franklin relics and the Goodsir family. Finger-Post.blog, 20 April 2022 (link).
Freebairn 2022b.
Freebairn, Alison.
2022. A Franklin Expedition Guide to Edinburgh. Finger-Post.blog, 11 September 2022 (link).
Gardner, Dugald.
2015. John Goodsir FRS (1814–1867): Pioneer of cytology and microbiology. Journal of Medical Biography, 2015; 25(2):114-122 (link).
Macintyre et al. 2021.
Iain Macintyre, Christopher Gardner-Thorpe, and Andreas K Demetriades.
2021. John Goodsir (1814–1867) and his neurological illness. Journal of Medical Biography, 2021; 31(1):65-74 (link).
Mays et al. 2011.
S. Mays, A. Ogden, J. Montgomery, S. Vincent, W. Battersby, G.M. Taylor.
2011. New light on the personal identification of a skeleton of a member of Sir John Franklin’s last expedition to the Arctic, 1845. Journal of Archaeological Science, Volume 38, Issue 7, 2011, Pages 1571-1582 (link).
Potter, Russell A.
2009. A second photograph of Harry Goodsir. Visions of the North, 2 August 2009 (link).
Though the 1842 portrait of Harry Goodsir had been published earlier (see Smith 1986), this 2009 article at Russell Potter’s Visions of the North is the moment that the Franklin Expedition community (and beyond) realized that another photograph of Harry Goodsir existed. As an example, a 2004 biographical article on Harry Goodsir in the Journal of Medical Biography (by M. H. Kaufman) didn’t seem to know the 1842 portrait existed, instead pairing Goodsir’s 1845 daguerreotype with not one but two images of Sir John Franklin. Since Potter’s article, the 1842 portrait has been ubiquitous.
Potter’s 2009 article links to an image of the 1842 portrait at the website (link) for a 2003 exhibition, Out of the Blue at the University of Dundee, where the portrait had evidently been on public display (also seen here).
Potter et al. 2022.
Russell A. Potter, Regina Koellner, Peter Carney, and Mary Williamson (Editors).
2022. May We Be Spared To Meet On Earth: Letters of the Lost Franklin Arctic Expedition.
Smith, Graham.
1986. ‘Dr. Harry Goodsir’, by Dr. Adamson of St. Andrews. History of Photography, 10:3, 229-236 (link).
Stubbs, Peter.
2023. EdinPhoto.org.uk.
The late Peter Stubbs’ excellent website for dating Edinburgh photography shows the Goodsir sibling photographs (Photographer E.W. Dallas: 125, Princes Street, Edinburgh) all date to 1864-71 (link), while the Miss Taylor photograph (Photographer J. Moffat: 103 Princes Street, Edinburgh) dates to 1861-76 (link).
A self-portrait of the photographer Elmslie William Dallas is held by the National Portrait Gallery, along with an E.W. Dallas photograph of John Rae from this same era (link).
Whitfield, John.
2003. Pasteur knocked off pedestal? Nature, 9 October 2003 (link).
As of publishing, this 2003 article is the only other instance I can find where someone had found an original – not the publication print – of the same photograph of John Goodsir as seen in Miss Anstruther’s photo album. The edges of the two portraits (Nature vs. St. Andrews) each extend beyond the other, confirming that they are indeed different copies of the same portrait. When contacted in April 2025, Whitfield understandably could no longer recall his image’s source (nor was it taken from the then-new paper that his 2003 Nature article had been covering).
Whitfield’s caption identified the portrait’s photographer as E.W. Dallas, matching the name on the reverse of the St. Andrews copy. A written copyright application (COPY 1/13/180) for what must be the same photograph (even mentioning the glove on the hat) exists at the National Archives in Kew; it is curious for being submitted under the name Peter Thompson – not E.W. Dallas – exactly one day after John Goodsir’s death in 1867. E.W. Dallas lived until 1879.
Incidentally, as the date range for the 125 Princes Street address for E.W. Dallas suggested a range of 1864–1871 (see Stubbs 2023), and as John Goodsir died in early 1867, that puts this photograph in the running for the final depiction of him before he died.
The common publication print (seen below, left) seems to originate from the 1902 book Some Apostles of Physiology by William Stirling.
Wherever the Nature photograph is today, Lane’s discovery of these portraits at St. Andrews means that a high quality original of the John Goodsir photograph can now be preferred over its derivative publication print. Though less flattering than the clearly doctored print, the photograph is a truer view of the man: he loses the lantern jaw, but more resembles his siblings.
{ The publication print (left) vs. the original photograph. }
Miscellaneous sources:
Miss Anstruther’s photographs album is held by St. Andrews University, Scotland. ID: msdep121/8/2/4/3/3 (link to record).
Special thanks to Julia Rohn and Steve Martin at the University of St. Andrews for their kind assistance in determining the studio photographer names on the back of the portraits.
The sketch of Harry Goodsir by Edward Forbes is held (in photographic form) by St. Andrews University, Scotland. ID: GPS-GoodsirH-1 (link to record).
The 1842 photograph of Harry Goodsir is held by St. Andrews University, Scotland. ID: ALB-8-90 (link to record). The image used in this article was edited for clarity by myself in 2023.
Correspondence between Jane Ross Goodsir and Charlotte Lucy Anstruther (including the letter to Jane shown in this article, photographed by Alison Freebairn) is held at St. Andrews University, Scotland. ID: msdep121/8/2/4/3/1 (link).
Robert Goodsir’s scrapbook is held by the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh (30166/A11). While it contains varied material, it is primarily an annotated copy of Robert’s book Only An Old Chair. The photograph of its portrait labeled “John Goodsir” used in this article was provided by Alison Freebairn.
The image used in this article of the publication print of John Goodsir’s portrait photograph, from William Stirling’s Some Apostles of Physiology (1902), comes from the Wellcome Library (link).
The original painting Alpine Mastiffs Reanimating a Distressed Traveler by Sir Edwin Landseer is held at Washington DC’s National Gallery of Art (link).
Allison Lane first posted the Forbes sketch of Harry Goodsir to Tumblr on 21 July 2018 (link).
The photographs in this article of Dean Cemetery (and Danube Street where Jane and Joseph lived) are my own, taken in Edinburgh in the summer of 2023 during a tour given by Alison Freebairn.