The famous Arctic explorer was born on 16 April 1786, the ninth child of Willingham
Franklin. He joined the Royal Navy and sailed under the command of his cousin Matthew
Flinders to Australia and later travelled to China. Franklin was present at the Battle of
Trafalgar in 1805 and in 1819 commanded an expedition to determine the latitudes and longitudes
of the northern part of Canada and chart its coast. Returning to England he married the poet
Eleanor Anne Porden in 1823. But she died a few years later and his second wife, Jane Griffin,
accompanied her husband on his travels in Australasia. For several years he was Governor of
Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania). In 1845 he set off on a voyage to discover the north-west
passage a navigable route from the Atlantic to the Pacific from which he never returned.
Evidence of his death was not found until 1859 when Admiral Sir Leopold McClintock led a
successful expedition to Canada and found papers in the ice that showed that Franklin died
on 11 June 1847 and his crew had all perished from cold and starvation.
Lady Franklin erected a memorial to her husband in the chapel of St John the Evangelist
in the Abbey. It consists of a white marble bust, with FRANKLIN inscribed on the base,
within a niche of alabaster. A relief carving of a ship trapped in ice is shown below,
with quotes from the ancient hymn called Benedicite: "O YE FROST AND COLD,
O YE ICE AND SNOW BLESS YE THE LORD: PRAISE HIM AND MAGNIFY HIM FOR EVER".
The monument is by Matthew Noble and Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote the
following verse especially for it:
“NOT HERE:
THE WHITE NORTH HAS THY BONES; AND THOU, HEROIC SAILOR-SOUL, ART
PASSING ON THINE HAPPIER VOYAGE NOW TOWARD NO EARTHLY POLE”.
On the left and right sides of the base are the inscriptions:
TO THE MEMORY OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN, BORN APRIL 16. 1786, AT SPILSBY,
LINCOLNSHIRE, DIED JUNE 11. 1847, OFF POINT VICTORY IN THE FROZEN OCEAN.
THE BELOVED CHIEF OF THE GALLANT CREWS WHO PERISHED WITH HIM IN COMPLETING
THE DISCOVERY OF THE NORTH-WEST PASSAGE.
THIS MONUMENT WAS ERECTED BY JANE, HIS WIDOW, WHO, AFTER LONG WAITING, AND
SENDING MANY IN SEARCH OF HIM, HERSELF DEPARTED, TO SEEK AND FIND HIM IN THE
REALMS OF LIGHT, JULY 18.1875, AGED 83 YEARS.
A photograph of the monument can be purchased from Westminster Abbey Library.
Further reading: The Dictionary of National Biography - entries for Franklin and his two wives.