Admiral Sir Edward Belcher, Royal Navy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Belcher

Admiral Sir Edward Belcher, KCB (27 February 1799 – 18 March 1877), was a Nova Scotian, British naval officer and explorer. He was the great-grandson of Governor Jonathan Belcher. His wife, Diana Jolliffe, was the stepdaughter of Captain Peter Heywood.

Belcher was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the second son of Andrew Belcher and entered the Royal Navy in 1812.

In 1825, he accompanied Frederick William Beechey's expedition to the Pacific and Bering Strait, as a surveyor. He subsequently commanded a surveying ship on the north and west coasts of Africa and in the British seas. Belcher married Diana Jolliffe in 1833 and three years thereafter took up the work which Beechey had left unfinished on the Pacific coast of South America. He was on board the bomb vessel HMS Sulphur, which was ordered to return to England in 1839 by the Trans-Pacific route. Belcher made various observations at a number of islands which he visited, was delayed by being despatched to take part in the war in China in 1840.

In 1841, the then Commander Belcher landed on Possession Point at the north shore Hong Kong Island and made the first British survey of Hong Kong harbour. After the war's end in 1842 he reached home and for his services was made a Knight Bachelor in the following year. He was then engaged in HMS Samarang, in surveying work in the East Indies, the Philippines, Geomun-do (Port Hamilton) and other places, until 1847. Arctic expedition

In 1852 Belcher led the last and largest Admiralty expedition to rescue Sir John Franklin. He was also to look for Richard Collinson and Robert McClure whose ships had not been seen after entering the Bering Strait. He did a great deal of sledge exploration, rescued McClure and abandoned 4 of his 5 ships in the ice.

He had five ships: HMS Assistance (1850) (Belcher), HMS Resolute (1850) (Henry Kellett, second mate George Nares), the steam tenders HMS Pioneer (Sherard Osborn) and HMS Intrepid (Leopold McClintock) and the depot ship North Star (William Pullen). Belcher and one tender were to enter Wellington Channel were Franklin was thought to be while Kellett was to go west to Melville Island and look for Collinson and McClure. The North Star was to stay at Beechey Island as a supply base. He left the Nore in April 1850. By early winter the Assistance and Pioneer were frozen in at Northumberland Sound to the north of Wellington Channel while the Resolute* and Intrepid were frozen in off Melville Island (Arctic) - the first ships this far west since William Edward Parry in 1819. A great deal of exploration was done by manhauled sledges.

In April 1853 Leopold McClintock and others left the Resolute on sledges and returned 105 days later having covered 1,400 miles and discovered Prince Patrick Island. Another party went west and discovered Robert McClure whose ship was frozen in at Mercy Bay. Belcher went north by sledge and found a channel at the northern tip of Devon Island, hinting that Franklin might have used it to escape to Baffin Bay. When the ice broke up that summer he pushed his ships up Wellington Channel and became trapped again. By February 1854 Belcher was becoming increasingly worried about the safety of his ships and men. In April he ordered Kellett to abandon his ships and return by sledge to the North Star. Belcher abandoned his two ships in late July.

Aided by two ships that showed up at Beechey Island (HMS Phoenix (1832) and Breadalbane (ship)), the whole party returned to England. Belcher went through a court martial, which was automatic for any captain who had lost a ship. He was exonorated, but his sword was returned to him 'without observation'. He never again received an active command. Curiously the Resolute broke free of the ice and drifted all the way to Davis Strait where it was picked up by an American whaler.*

http://www.belcherfoundation.org/admiral_sir_edward_belcher.htm

• The HMS Resolute was made into a desk by the British as a gift to the USA and has been used in the Oval Office by all but a few American Presidents. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Resolute_%281850%29

Errata: He and his wife were married only briefly. She sought a divorce on the grounds of a sexually transmitted disease.

http://pds.lib.harvard.edu/pds/view/5833972?n=49&printThumbnails=no

Sir Edward Belcher, (born 1799, Halifax, Nova Scotia [now in Canada]—died March 18, 1877, London, Eng.), naval officer who performed many coastal surveys for the British Admiralty.

The grandson of a governor of Nova Scotia, Belcher entered the navy in 1812. After serving as a surveyor with an expedition to the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Strait in 1825, he commanded a surveying ship along the north and west coasts of Africa (1830–33). He undertook a voyage to the west coasts of North and South America, the South Pacific, and China (1836–42) and a subsequent voyage to China, Borneo, the Philippine Islands, and Formosa (1843–46).

In 1852 Belcher was given command of an Arctic expedition to search for the explorer Sir John Franklin, who was lost in attempting to find the Northwest Passage. The hardships of the voyage seemed to tax Belcher beyond his abilities: he ordered four ice-bound ships abandoned in May 1854, apparently without justification. Relieved of further command, he described his Arctic venture in The Last of the Arctic Voyages (1855). He was created a Knight Commander of the Bath in 1867 and he became an admiral in 1872.

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Edward Belcher, a leader of the Colony of Kent, the son of Andrew Belcher of Halifax, Nova Scotia, was born in 1799. He entered the Royal Navy in 1812 and was knighted in January 1843. The same year he published his Narrative of a Voyage around the World Performed in H.M.S. Sulphur during the Years 1836–1842. Sometime during the period between 1848 and 1852 Belcher was in Texas to make arrangements for the English settlers of the Colony of Kent. This included supervising the survey of the colony made by Maj. George B. Erath and Neil McLennan. Belcher became an admiral in the British navy on October 20, 1872, and died on March 18, 1877.