The 1773 Phipps expedition towards the North Pole was a British

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

expedition in which two ships under the commands of Constantine John Phipps and

Skeffington Lutwidge Admiral Skeffington Lutwidge (13 March 1737 – 15/16 August 1814) was an officer of the Royal Navy, who saw service during the American War of Independence, and the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. He had a particular connection wi ...

sailed towards the North Pole in the summer of 1773 and became stuck in ice near

Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), also known as Spitsbergen, or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. North of mainland Europe, it is about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group range ...

Background

In January 1773, on the initiative of its vice president

Daines Barrington Daines Barrington, Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS, Society of Antiquaries of London, FSA (1727/2814 March 1800) was an English lawyer, antiquary and naturalist. He was one of the correspondents to whom Gilbert White wrote extensively on natur ...

, the Secretary of the

Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...

Matthew Maty Matthew Maty (17 May 1718 – 2 July 1776), originally Matthieu Maty, was a Dutch physician and writer of Huguenot background, and after migration to England secretary of the Royal Society and the second principal librarian of the British Museum ...

, sent a letter to

Lord Sandwich Earl of Sandwich is a noble title in the Peerage of England, held since its creation by the House of Montagu. It is nominally associated with Sandwich, Kent. It was created in 1660 for the prominent naval commander Admiral Sir Edward Montagu ...

, the

First Lord of the Admiralty The First Lord of the Admiralty, or formally the Office of the First Lord of the Admiralty, was the political head of the English and later British Royal Navy. He was the government's senior adviser on all naval affairs, responsible for the di ...

, suggesting a voyage to the North Pole. Barrington had been influenced by the writings of the Swiss geographer

Samuel Engel Samuel Engel (2 December 1702 – 26 March 1784) was a Swiss librarian, civil servant, economist and agronomist working in Bern who introduced innovations in several fields. He was convinced of the existence of a Northeast Passage and published ...

, who had suggested in his 1765 book the existence of a vast empty sea near the North Pole. Engel's explanation for the sea ice found in the Arctic was that most of it came from rivers, and so would only be found close to land. Sandwich, a friend of Daines Barrington, proposed the expedition to King

George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...

, "which his Majesty was pleased to direct should be immediately undertaken".

Preparations

Constantine Phipps volunteered for the expedition and was appointed its commander. The

bomb vessel A bomb vessel, bomb ship, bomb ketch, or simply bomb was a type of wooden sailing naval ship. Its primary armament was not cannons ( long guns or carronades) – although bomb vessels carried a few cannons for self-defence – but mortars mounte ...

was chosen as the expedition ship and modified at

Deptford Dockyard Deptford Dockyard was an important naval dockyard and base at Deptford on the River Thames, operated by the Royal Navy from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. It built and maintained warships for 350 years, and many significant events a ...

in March and April 1773. The second bomb vessel, under the command of

, was refitted at

Sheerness Dockyard Sheerness Dockyard also known as the Sheerness Station was a Royal Navy Dockyard located on the Sheerness peninsula, at the mouth of the River Medway in Kent. It was opened in the 1660s and closed in 1960. Location In the Age of Sail, the R ...

, with both ships provided with additional protection against ice.

Ships

''Racehorse'' had originally been a French ship, the ''Marquis de Vaudreuil'' until she was captured by the Royal Navy during the

Seven Years' War The Seven Years' War (1756–1763) was a global conflict that involved most of the European Great Powers, and was fought primarily in Europe, the Americas, and Asia-Pacific. Other concurrent conflicts include the French and Indian War (1754� ...

and renamed HMS ''Racehorse'' on 5 May 1757. She had three masts and carried 18 guns, and was rated as a sloop. In 1759, ''Racehorse'' took part in the Siege of Quebec.

Crew members of the expedition

Members of the expedition included on ''Racehorse'',

Henry Harvey Admiral Sir Henry Harvey KB (Bef. 4 Aug 1737 – 28 December 1810) was a long-serving officer of the British Royal Navy during the second half of the eighteenth century. Harvey participated in numerous naval operations and actions and espec ...

as first lieutenant, Charles Irving as surgeon,

Israel Lyons Israel Lyons the Younger (1739–1775), mathematician and botanist, was born at Cambridge, the son of Israel Lyons the elder (died 1770). He was regarded as a prodigy, especially in mathematics, and Robert Smith, master of Trinity College, took ...

as astronomer,

Philippe d'Auvergne } Philippe d'Auvergne (13 November 1754 – 18 September 1816) was a British naval officer and the adopted son of Godefroy de La Tour d'Auvergne the sovereign Duke of Bouillon. He chose a career in the Royal Navy that spanned a period of history w ...

as midshipman, and

Olaudah Equiano Olaudah Equiano (; c. 1745 – 31 March 1797), known for most of his life as Gustavus Vassa (), was a writer and abolitionist from, according to his memoir, the Eboe (Igbo) region of the Kingdom of Benin (today southern Nigeria). Enslaved as ...

as able seaman. On ''Carcass'',

Horatio Nelson Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronte (29 September 1758 – 21 October 1805) was a British flag officer in the Royal Navy. His inspirational leadership, grasp of strategy, and unconventional tactics brought abo ...

served as midshipman. Two Greenland whalers were hired as pilots for each of the ships.

Equipment

For navigation, ''Racehorse'' was equipped with a

Larcum Kendall Larcum Kendall (21 September 1719 in Charlbury, Oxfordshire – 22 November 1790 in London) was a British watchmaker. Early life Kendall was born on 21 September 1719 in Charlbury. His father was a mercer and linen draper named Moses Ke ...

K2 chronometer and ''Carcass'' with a John Arnold chronometer. Other new technology on board included

Pierre Bouguer Pierre Bouguer () (16 February 1698, Croisic – 15 August 1758, Paris) was a French mathematician, geophysicist, geodesist, and astronomer. He is also known as "the father of naval architecture". Career Bouguer's father, Jean Bouguer, one ...

's improved

log Log most often refers to: * Trunk (botany), the stem and main wooden axis of a tree, called logs when cut ** Logging, cutting down trees for logs ** Firewood, logs used for fuel ** Lumber or timber, converted from wood logs * Logarithm, in mathe ...

and Irving's apparatus for distillation of seawater.

Journey

The Admiralty's instructions for Phipps from 25 May 1773 stated he should sail north from the

Nore The Nore is a long bank of sand and silt running along the south-centre of the final narrowing of the Thames Estuary, England. Its south-west is the very narrow Nore Sand. Just short of the Nore's easternmost point where it fades into the cha ...

and then, " ..passing between Spitzbergen and Greenland, proceed up to the North Pole or as far towards it as you are able, carefully avoiding the errors of former navigators by keeping as much as possible in the open sea, and as nearly upon a meridian to the said Pole as the ice or other obstructions you meet with will admit of. If you arrive at the Pole and should even find the sea so open as to admit of a free navigation on the opposite meridian you are not to proceed any further but ..you are to return to the Nore .. HMS Carcass and HMS Racehorse searching for the North West Passage in 1773 2003 CSK 09631 0359

HMS Carcass and HMS Racehorse searching for the North West Passage in 1773 2003 CSK 09631 0359

The ships sailed north from the Nore on 4 June 1773.

Spitsbergen Spitsbergen (; formerly known as West Spitsbergen; Norwegian: ''Vest Spitsbergen'' or ''Vestspitsbergen'' , also sometimes spelled Spitzbergen) is the largest and the only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in northern Norw ...

was sighted on 28 June, and the ships sailed further north while observing and surveying the coast. From Hakluyt's headland they continued northwest, starting to encounter ice. From 8 July, the ice made movement very difficult, and the ships had to be towed with smaller boats. As the ice was impenetrable, Phipps turned east to determine whether the ice was joined with Spitsbergen. The expedition made further attempts to sail north while going east along the coast and surveying and studying various islands. On 27 July they reached their furthest point to the north at 80°48'N. On 30 July, on one of the Seven Islands, Phipps and Lutwidge climbed a hill and could see that the sea was completely frozen over to the east. On their return, the ships were completely surrounded by ice. Over the next few days, Phipps was ready to abandon ships and the crew started hauling the boats over the ice. However, on 10 August, the ships broke free of the ice and into the open sea and returned west to Fairhaven. After a final attempt to sail northwest on 19 August, they started the journey home. The ships were separated by storms, and on 18 September, ''Carcass'' reached

Yarmouth Roads Yarmouth Roads is a coastal feature in Norfolk, England that was used by merchant and naval ships as an anchorage or roadstead off Great Yarmouth. Description The following is a description of Yarmouth Roads that appeared in The Nautical Magazi ...

and Lutwidge sent news of the expedition to the Admiralty. The ships reunited on 26 September and returned to docks on the Thames on 30 September.

Publications

An anonymous narrative of the journey appeared in February 1774, and Phipps' book, ''A voyage towards the North Pole'' containing 70 pages of narrative as well as a lengthy appendix with the scientific results of the journey, in the late summer of 1774. Phipps' book contained engravings depicting the ships in the ice that were made from watercolours by

John Cleveley the Younger John Cleveley the Younger (24 December 1747 – 25 June 1786) was a British artist and marine painter. Life and work Cleveley was the son of John Cleveley the Elder. He and his twin brother Robert were both, like their father, marine painter ...

. These were in turn based on

's sketches. A French translation of the book appeared in 1775 and a German translation in 1777. The journey also features in

's 1789 autobiography, ''

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano ''The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African'', first published in 1789 in London,

'', and another eyewitness account, that of midshipman Thomas Floyd, was compiled by his family and published in 1879.

Legacy

Richard Westall (1765-1836) - Nelson and the Bear - BHC2907 - Royal Museums Greenwich

The failure of the expedition to get through the ice to the North Pole did not convince Barrington or Engel that this was impossible. Scientific results of the journey include the first scientific description of the

polar bear The polar bear (''Ursus maritimus'') is a hypercarnivorous bear whose native range lies largely within the Arctic Circle, encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and surrounding land masses. It is the largest extant bear specie ...

and the

ivory gull The ivory gull (''Pagophila eburnea'') is a small gull, the only species in the genus ''Pagophila''. It breeds in the high Arctic and has a circumpolar distribution through Greenland, northernmost North America, and Eurasia. Taxonomy The ivory ...

. Some islands of

Sjuøyane Sjuøyane (English: ''Seven Islands'') is the northernmost part of the Svalbard archipelago north of mainland Norway, and some 20 km north of the eastern major island Nordaustlandet. The islands are the northernmost landmass reachable by normal ...

are named after expedition members:

Nelsonøya Nelsonøya (anglicized as Nelson Island) is a small island, part of Sjuøyane, north of Nordaustlandet. The island is named after the well known englishman Horatio Nelson, who served as midshipman aboard , under Captain Skeffington Lutwidge. The ...

Phippsøya Phippsøya (anglicized as Phipps Island) is the largest island in Sjuøyane, an archipelago north of Nordaustlandet, Svalbard in Arctic Norway. It is located some 22 km north of Nordkapp on Svalbard proper and 8.5 km south of Rossøya, ...

, and

Waldenøya Waldenøya (anglicized as Walden Island) is a small, rocky island just north of Nordkapp, Nordaustlandet on Svalbard. It is the westernmost part of Sjuøyane in the Svaldbard archipelago. The island is named after John Walden, who was a midshi ...

. Starting in 1800, a story about

chasing a polar bear began to circulate, including Nelson's alleged response to a reprimand from Lutwidge, "I wished, Sir, to get the skin for my father." After Nelson's death, the story was expanded in his biographies, and included claims that Nelson had tried to attack the bear with his broken musket, wielding it like a club, a scene immortalised in a painting by

Richard Westall Richard Westall (2 January 1765 – 4 December 1836) was an English painter and illustrator of portraits, historical and literary events, best known for his portraits of Byron. He was also Queen Victoria's drawing master. Biography We ...

. The Norwegian professor of British literature, , described the Phipps expedition as "an Arctic expedition representing a watershed in polar exploration, adding to the discovery of land and natural resources a new dimension, namely that of scientific investigation".

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * {{commonscat, A voyage towards the North Pole - undertaken by His Majesty's command, 1773 (1774) Expeditions from Great Britain Arctic expeditions 1773 in Great Britain 18th-century history of the Royal Navy