The expedition’s ships were HMS Erebus, commanded by Captain Franklin and Commander Fitzjames, and HMS Terror, commanded by Captain Crozier.
John Franklin had been on a handful of Arctic expeditions, and he was fairly famous for one in particular. The Coppermine expedition, of which Franklin was the leading officer, was a total disaster which ended with 11 out of 22 members perishing. However, when Franklin returned to England, he was hailed as a brave hero and earned the moniker of ‘the man who ate his boots’ to stave off starvation.
Francis Crozier was an Arctic veteran who had just returned in 1843 from a long expedition to Antarctica. The expedition used the same ships of Erebus and Terror, so they were well-prepped for the cold weather. Before the Franklin expedition, he proposed and was rejected twice by Sophia Cracroft, John Franklin’s niece. It’s likely that Crozier wanted to escape the confines of gossip and society and hoped to do so by journeying to the ends of the Earth yet again.
James Fitzjames was a great deal younger than the other 2 senior officers, and his naval career centred around exotic places like China and India. He was the illegitimate son of a very prominent naval family and had strong support to lead this expedition. Fitzjames had no experience traversing icy waters, though he hoped that promotion, riches, and fame were within his grasp after the triumph of this expedition.
The Franklin expedition’s legacy, however, is a far cry from the shining hue of success they expected.
The ships became trapped in frozen waters in 1846. The ice never melted in the summer months, forcing the crew to abandon the ships and walk 250 miles around the coast of King William Island to reach safety – as described in the Victory Point note of 1847. With ship names like Terror and Erebus, which translates to the personification of darkness in Greek mythology, it is unsurprising that none of the crew were seen alive again.
Numerous expeditions were sent after them to try and find survivors, though all that was found were skeletal remains and paraphernalia brought with them from their abandoned ships. It took 170 years for the wrecks of Erebus and Terror to be found, and yet the truth of what happened to these men remains unknown.
Theory 1: Lead poisoning
For many years, the prevailing theory as to why all the men died was lead poisoning due to issues with the soldering of their canned provisions. A company known as Goldner was chosen to supply the expedition with canned foods, though this only accounted for about 15% of the crew’s total provisions. Actual Goldner tins were found scattered around King William Island, and analysis showed that many of them were improperly sealed and were made from 90% lead.
Other scholars believe the source of the lead poisoning could have come from the new water filtration system, which was specially fit into the ships for this expedition and hosted the perfect conditions for lead to leach into fresh drinking water. Lead poisoning can cause headaches, joint pain, and more seriously, can cause seizures and organ damage.
This theory has had so much attention because of the 3 bodies discovered on Beechey Island. Crew members who had died in 1846 were found buried in marked graves, and were almost perfectly preserved in the frozen permafrost. Owen Beattie, a professor of Anthropology at the University of Alberta, led an expedition in 1984-86 to exhume and examine these bodies, in the hope that the fate of the crew could be determined.
The team first exhumed the body of John Torrington, who died January 1st 1846, and discovered that the lead content in his hair was over 600 parts per million. The normal levels of lead in hair should be less than 4 parts per million.
Even though all 3 of the bodies examined showed increased lead levels, these levels may not have strayed far from the norm for Victorian England. A 2018 study compared the bones of another naval population in Antigua to the ones found on King William Island. They determined that the lead levels were fairly similar, even though this control population had died under very different circumstances and without the consumption of Goldner tins.
The Beechey Island bodies underwent autopsies, and Beattie concluded they had likely died of pneumonia caused by tuberculosis.
John Hartnell, who died January 4th 1846, was the third body to be exhumed and showed signs of a previous autopsy from 1846. The circumstances of his death must have been quite suspicious to convince the ship surgeon to perform an autopsy, and they may have believed an epidemic or perhaps the beginnings of scurvy were appearing in the crew. Certain medications given to treat tuberculosis in the 1800s could well have contributed to increased lead levels, though of course whether this had a major impact is unknown.
Other remains found on the island from a later date (perhaps 1848) also indicate signs of lead poisoning, but these crew members must have survived for over three years on poisoned provisions. There is so much conjecture about the lead poisoning theory, and so the only summary I can offer is this: lead poisoning certainly would have weakened the crew, but it’s unlikely to have dealt the killing blow.
Theory 2: Scurvy
Historically, scurvy was a disease closely linked to the navy and being away on ships for an extended time.
During the Age of Sail, it was assumed that 50% of sailors would die of scurvy on a major trip, and this disease did kill more than two million sailors between the 16th and 18th centuries.
Scurvy develops when the body has a deficiency of vitamin C, which causes the collagen of the body to break down, and results in bleeding gums, loose teeth, anaemia, and bleeding (especially from the hairline, known medically as perifollicular haemorrhage). It meant that any scars would reopen, and most often the main cause of death in scurvy was subsequent infection from a reopened old wound.
In 1747, James Lind conducted one of the first clinical trials into scurvy and discovered that sailors given citrus fruits were protected from the disease. By 1800, it become compulsory for the entire fleet to be given lemon juice to stave off scurvy.
Erebus and Terror were provided with 930 gallons of lemon juice, which they knew would protect their crew from scurvy. However, many of the skeletal remains found on King William Island in 1981 showed signs of scurvy when analysed.
It takes about three months of prolonged vitamin C deficiency for the first symptoms of scurvy to set in, with death following complications such as excess bleeding or infection. Vitamin C is unstable and breaks down quite easily unless properly stored. The lemon juice in their stores may have begun to ferment, and they may have decided to boil the juice to preserve it. This boiling would have destroyed the vitamin C within and effectively made it useless. After three years of storage, it’s likely the vitamin C would have naturally broken down anyway; a textbook example of a Catch-22 situation.
Again, much conjecture on whether the crew severely suffered from scurvy exists, but there is ample evidence from the many prior and successive expeditions that show that even after as little as 70 days, the men could begin to suffer from scurvy.
Theory 3: Clostridium bacteria
For those who believe a more sinister and negligence-driven reason was the purpose for the expedition’s failure, we again turn to the Goldner tinned provisions.
In 1852, the Goldner company was disgraced by reports of rancid products, and it was discovered that many of the cans supplied to the Franklin expedition were improperly sealed.
There were also questions on the preparation of the provisions, and whether they were cooked properly in the first place to prevent bacterial growth. This led some to assume that these cans were the source of Clostridium bacteria found in the intestines of William Braine, the third member of the expedition to die, on the 3rd of April 1846.
The high salinity of the contents of the cans and the method that Goldner used to cook the food should have prevented any Clostridium growth if he stuck to his method in the haste to fulfil the order. Where else then could the bacteria have come from?
Clostridium has been regularly found in the stomachs of polar bears and seals, and Braine could have ingested the bacteria this way if successful in hunting.
However, there is no evidence to suggest that any hunting parties were successful in finding food: quite the opposite.
Theory 4: Cannibalism
Reports from John Rae’s expedition of 1854 stated that the Inuit people had seen a large group of men walking down the coast of King William Island 6 years earlier. Shortly after, their bodies were found near a place aptly named Starvation Cove. Rae investigated the site and determined that some of the corpses had indeed been cannibalised.
The Victorian public vehemently denied that cannibalism could have occurred, with this narrative even being condemned by Charles Dickens. All Inuit accounts, including the approximate areas of the shipwrecks, were labelled as libellous and false. This almost certainly delayed their discovery for an extra 160 years.
Over a quarter of the remains found on King William Island in 1981 showed signs of cannibalism, and one notable mandible had multiple cut marks and notches on it. This jawbone, in September 2024, was confirmed to have been James Fitzjames’, commander of the Erebus. It speaks to the crew’s desperation and shows that rank, nor status, had any meaning in the end.
Conclusion
Ultimately, not one singular theory can explain why all these men died when so many others lived through expeditions quite similar to this one. The combination of scurvy, general poor health, and some acute lead poisoning is enough to wear anyone down.
The final fate of the Franklin expedition will likely never be known unless some new information comes to light. HMS Erebus‘ cabin is still sealed and lies at the bottom of the icy depths, and it may have a copy of the ship’s logs. If an expedition was mounted to crack open the doors, who knows what answers we could find inside?
