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Edward Belcher
Admiral Sir Edward Belcher (27 February 1799 – 18 March 1877) was a British naval officer, hydrographer, and explorer. Born in Nova Scotia, he was the great-grandson of Jonathan Belcher, who served as a colonial governor of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New Jersey. Biography Early life Belcher was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the second son of Andrew Belcher and entered the Royal Navy in 1812. Surveys In 1825, he accompanied Frederick William Beechey's expedition to the Pacific and Bering Strait as a surveyor. In 1835 he was surveying in the Irish Sea in , and in 1836 he commanded a surveying ship on the north and west coasts of Africa and in the British seas. Belcher took up the work which Beechey had left unfinished on the Pacific coast of South America. He was on board , which was ordered to return to England in 1839 via the Trans-Pacific route. Belcher made various observations at a number of islands which he visited, having been delayed by being desp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stephen Pearce
Stephen Pearce (16 November 1819 – 31 January 1904) was an English portrait and equestrian painter. Forty-four portraits which he painted are in the National Portrait Gallery, London, which also contains two self-portraits. Life He was born on 16 November 1819 at the King's Mews, Charing Cross, was only child of Stephen Pearce, clerk in the department of the master of horse, and Ann Whittington. He was trained at Sass's Academy in Charlotte Street, and at the Royal Academy schools, 1840, and in 1841 became a pupil of Sir Martin Archer Shee. From 1842 to 1846, he acted as amanuensis to Charles Lever, and he afterwards visited Italy. Paintings by him of favourite horses in the royal mews (transferred in 1825 to Buckingham Palace) were exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1839 and 1841, and from 1849, on his return from Italy, till 1885 he contributed numerous portraits and equestrian paintings to Burlington House. Early friendship with Sir John Barrow, 1st Baronet, Sir ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Henry Kellett
Vice Admiral Sir Henry Kellett, (2 November 1806 – 1 March 1875) was a British naval officer and explorer. Career Born at Clonacody in Tipperary County, Ireland, on 2 November 1806, Kellett joined the Royal Navy in 1822. He spent three years in the West Indies and then served on survey vessels under William Fitzwilliam Owen in Africa, as second-in-command of under Edward Belcher in the East Indies, and as captain of in the First Opium War with China during which he was promoted to commander in 1841 and post-captain in 1842. In 1845 Kellett was appointed captain of the survey ship as part of a hydrography survey mission, the primary objective of which was to survey the coast of the Americas from Guayaquil to Vancouver, including the Galápagos Islands. He was temporarily reassigned in 1848 to join the search for Sir John Franklin. During this voyage he sailed through the Bering Strait across the Chukchi Sea and discovered Herald Island. Kellett landed on Herald Island ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert McClure
Vice-Admiral Sir Robert John Le Mesurier McClure (28 January 1807 – 17 October 1873) was an Irish explorer of Scots descent who explored the Arctic. In 1854 he traversed the Northwest Passage by boat and sledge, and was the first to circumnavigate the Americas. Early life and career McClure was born in Wexford in the south-east of Ireland. His father was Captain Robert McClure from County Londonderry in Ulster, who was serving with the 89th Foot. McClure's mother (the daughter of Archdeacon John Elgee) and father had met and married while his father was stationed in Wexford in 1807; but, his father had died by the time of McClure's birth. He was a first cousin of Jane Wilde, the mother of Oscar Wilde, and spent his childhood under the care of his godfather, John Le Mesurier, governor of Alderney, by whom he was educated for the army. It is said that this branch of the McClures, who settled in County Londonderry in the 1650s, during the Plantation of Ulster, were ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Collinson
Admiral Sir Richard Collinson (7 November 1811 – 13 September 1883) was an English naval officer and explorer of the Northwest Passage. Early life He was born in Gateshead, Tyne and Wear, England, then part of County Durham. He joined the Royal Navy in 1823 at age twelve and rose in the ranks, becoming a lieutenant in 1835, commander in 1841, and captain in 1842. China Collinson was in command of the ''Lady Bentinck'', a vessel of 1800 tons burden and 520 horsepower, when it appeared with the ''Phlegethon'' off Chapoo in eastern China, causing a "sensation". On 1 April 1842, the British Plenipotentiary of Trade Henry Pottinger reported that Collinson, as commander of the ''Nemesis'' based in Chusan, had contributed to a successful skirmish with Chinese troops on the island of Taisam near Ningbo in February of that year. As commander of HMS ''Plover'', and with the aid of Lt Henry Kellett in HMS ''Starling'', he surveyed the China coast from 1842 to 1846, producing charts ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sir John Franklin
Sir John Franklin (16 April 1786 – 11 June 1847) was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. After serving in wars against Napoleonic France and the United States, he led two expeditions into the Canadian Arctic and through the islands of the Arctic Archipelago, in 1819 and 1825, and served as Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land from 1839 to 1843. During his third and final expedition, an attempt to traverse the Northwest Passage in 1845, Franklin's ships became icebound off King William Island in what is now Nunavut, where he died in June 1847. The icebound ships were abandoned ten months later and the entire crew died, from causes such as starvation, hypothermia, and scurvy. Biography Early life Franklin was born in Spilsby, Lincolnshire, on , the ninth of twelve children born to Hannah Weekes and Willingham Franklin. His father was a merchant descended from a line of country gentlemen while his mother was the daughter of a farmer. One of his bro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Port Hamilton
Komundo or Port Hamilton, officially Geomun-do in Korean (Hangul: 거문도 'Geomun-do'' Hanja: 巨文島 or 巨門島) is a small group of islands in the Jeju Strait off the southern coast of the Korean Peninsula, located approximately at . The islands are . There are three principal islands, the two larger ones, Sodo to the west (''Seo-do'', 서도, 西島) and Sunhodo to the east (''Dong-do'', 동도, 東島) forming a harbor with the smaller island in the center. On this central island, Observatory Island (or ''Go-do'', 고도, 古島), there was a British naval base from 1885 to 1887. Today, the islands form a part of Samsan-myeon, Yeosu City, South Jeolla Province of South Korea, with the Samsan township offices located on Observation Island. The islands are also part of the Dadohaehaesang National Park. History Port Hamilton was surveyed in 1845 by British naval officer Sir Edward Belcher in HMS ''Samarang'' and was named after the then secretary of the Admiralt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
East Indies
The East Indies (or simply the Indies), is a term used in historical narratives of the Age of Discovery. The Indies refers to various lands in the East or the Eastern hemisphere, particularly the islands and mainlands found in and around the Indian Ocean by Portuguese explorers, soon after the Cape route was discovered. Nowadays, this term is broadly used to refer to the Malay Archipelago, which today comprises the Philippine Archipelago, Indonesian Archipelago, Malaysian Borneo, and New Guinea. Historically, the term was used in the Age of Discovery to refer to the coasts of the landmasses comprising the Indian subcontinent and the Indochinese Peninsula along with the Malay Archipelago. Overview During the era of European colonization, territories of the Spanish Empire in Asia were known as the Spanish East Indies for 333 years before the American conquest. Dutch occupied colonies in the area were known for about 300 years as the Dutch East Indies till ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Knight Bachelor
The title of Knight Bachelor is the basic rank granted to a man who has been knighted by the monarch but not inducted as a member of one of the organised orders of chivalry; it is a part of the British honours system. Knights Bachelor are the most ancient sort of British knight (the rank existed during the 13th-century reign of King Henry III), but Knights Bachelor rank below knights of chivalric orders. A man who is knighted is formally addressed as " Sir irst Name urname or "Sir irst Name and his wife as "Lady urname. Criteria Knighthood is usually conferred for public service; amongst its recipients are all male judges of His Majesty's High Court of Justice in England. It is possible to be a Knight Bachelor and a junior member of an order of chivalry without being a knight of that order; this situation has become rather common, especially among those recognized for achievements in entertainment. For instance, Sir Michael Gambon, Sir Derek Jacobi, Sir Anthony Hopkins ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta in South China. With 7.5 million residents of various nationalities in a territory, Hong Kong is one of the most densely populated places in the world. Hong Kong is also a major global financial centre and one of the most developed cities in the world. Hong Kong was established as a colony of the British Empire after the Qing Empire ceded Hong Kong Island from Xin'an County at the end of the First Opium War in 1841 then again in 1842.. The colony expanded to the Kowloon Peninsula in 1860 after the Second Opium War and was further extended when Britain obtained a 99-year lease of the New Territories in 1898... British Hong Kong was occupied by Imperial Japan from 1941 to 1945 during World War II; British administration resumed afte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hong Kong Island
Hong Kong Island is an Islands and peninsulas of Hong Kong, island in the southern part of Hong Kong. Known colloquially and on road signs simply as Hong Kong, the island has a population of 1,289,500 and its population density is 16,390/km2, . The island had a population of about 3,000 inhabitants scattered in a dozen fishing villages when it was occupied by the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom in the First Opium War (1839–1842). In 1842, the island was formally ceded in perpetuity to the UK under the Treaty of Nanking and the Victoria, Hong Kong, City of Victoria was then established on the island by the British Force in honour of Queen Victoria. The Central, Hong Kong, Central area on the island is the historical, political and economic centre of Hong Kong. The northern coast of the island forms the southern shore of the Victoria Harbour, which is largely responsible for the development of Hong Kong due to its deep waters favoured by large tra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Possession Point
Possession Point () is a former point of land on the northwestern coast of Hong Kong Island in Hong Kong, before land reclamation moved the location further inland. History The area is where Commodore Gordon Bremer, commander-in-chief of British forces in China, took formal possession of Hong Kong on 26 January 1841. Captain Edward Belcher, who surveyed the island in 1841, wrote: "We landed on Monday, the 25th, 1841, at fifteen minutes past eight A. M., and being the bona fide first possessors, Her Majesty's health was drank with three cheers on Possession Mount."The Chinese Repository'. Volume 12. Canton. 1843. p. 492. Accompanied by officers of the naval squadron the next day, Bremer took formal possession, under a ''feu de joie'' from the Royal Marines and a royal salute from the men-of-war ships. The hoisting of the Union Jack was possibly done by either William Dowell, who was a midshipman during the ceremony, or Mohammed Arab, who served in either the Bengal Voluntee ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
