Edward Bransfield (c. 1785 – 31 October 1852) was an Irish sailor who became an officer in the 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 Fr ...

, serving as a

master Master or masters may refer to: Ranks or titles * Ascended master, a term used in the Theosophical religious tradition to refer to spiritually enlightened beings who in past incarnations were ordinary humans *Grandmaster (chess), National Master ...

on several ships, after being impressed into service in Ireland at the age of 18. He is noted for his participation in several explorations of parts of

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest cont ...

, including a sighting of the Trinity Peninsula in January 1820.

Early life

Edward Bransfield was born in Ballinacurra,

County Cork County Cork ( ga, Contae Chorcaí) is the largest and the southernmost county of Ireland, named after the city of Cork, the state's second-largest city. It is in the province of Munster and the Southern Region. Its largest market towns a ...

, Ireland, in about 1785. While little is known of Edward's family or early life, the Bransfields are thought to have been a well-known and respected

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

family. They may have had enough money to pay for Edward's education, but because of the Penal Laws, it is more likely that he attended a local hedge school. On 2 June 1803, Bransfield, then eighteen years old, was removed by British sailors from his father's fishing boat and impressed into the Royal Navy. He began as an ordinary seaman on the 110-gun first-rate

ship of the line A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed during the Age of Sail from the 17th century to the mid-19th century. The ship of the line was designed for the naval tactic known as the line of battle, which depended on the two colu ...

, where he shared living quarters with

William Edward Parry Sir William Edward Parry (19 December 1790 – 8 July 1855) was an Royal Navy officer and explorer best known for his 1819–1820 expedition through the Parry Channel, probably the most successful in the long quest for the Northwest Pas ...

, then a twelve-year-old midshipman; Parry later also became known in polar exploration. Bransfield was rated as an able seaman in 1805 and was appointed to the 110-gun first-rate (which had taken part in the

Battle of Trafalgar The Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805) was a naval engagement between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French and Spanish Navies during the War of the Third Coalition (August–December 1805) of the Napoleonic Wars (1 ...

); he was promoted in 1806 to

able seaman An able seaman (AB) is a seaman and member of the deck department of a merchant ship with more than two years' experience at sea and considered "well acquainted with his duty". An AB may work as a watchstander, a day worker, or a combination o ...

, then 2nd master's mate in 1808,

midshipman A midshipman is an officer of the lowest rank, in the Royal Navy, United States Navy, and many Commonwealth navies. Commonwealth countries which use the rank include Canada (Naval Cadet), Australia, Bangladesh, Namibia, New Zealand, South Af ...

in 1808,

clerk A clerk is a white-collar worker who conducts general office tasks, or a worker who performs similar sales-related tasks in a retail environment. The responsibilities of clerical workers commonly include record keeping, filing, staffing service ...

in 1809, and midshipman again in 1811. By 1812, he had achieved the rank of second master, and in the same year he was made acting master on HMS ''Goldfinch'', a 10-gun ''Cherokee''-class

brig-sloop In the 18th century and most of the 19th, a sloop-of-war in the Royal Navy was a warship with a single gun deck that carried up to eighteen guns. The rating system covered all vessels with 20 guns and above; thus, the term ''sloop-of-war'' enc ...

. Between the years 1814 and 1816, Bransfield served briefly as

on many

fifth-rate In the rating system of the Royal Navy used to categorise sailing warships, a fifth rate was the second-smallest class of warships in a hierarchical system of six " ratings" based on size and firepower. Rating The rating system in the Royal ...

ships. On 21 February 1816, he was appointed master of the 50-gun

fourth-rate In 1603 all English warships with a compliment of fewer than 160 men were known as 'small ships'. In 1625/26 to establish pay rates for officers a six tier naval ship rating system was introduced.Winfield 2009 These small ships were divided i ...

, leading it in the Bombardment of Algiers. During September 1817, he was appointed master of HMS ''Andromache'' under the command of Captain W. H. Shirreff. It was during this tour of duty that he was posted to the Royal Navy's new

Pacific Squadron The Pacific Squadron was part of the United States Navy squadron stationed in the Pacific Ocean in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Initially with no United States ports in the Pacific, they operated out of storeships which provided naval s ...

off

Valparaíso Valparaíso (; ) is a major city, seaport, naval base, and educational centre in the commune of Valparaíso, Chile. "Greater Valparaíso" is the second largest metropolitan area in the country. Valparaíso is located about northwest of Santiago ...

in Chile.

Antarctic exploration

During 1773,

James Cook James Cook (7 November 1728 Old Style date: 27 October – 14 February 1779) was a British explorer, navigator, cartographer, and captain in the British Royal Navy, famous for his three voyages between 1768 and 1779 in the Pacific Ocean and ...

sailed beyond the

Antarctic Circle The Antarctic Circle is the most southerly of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of Earth. The region south of this circle is known as the Antarctic, and the zone immediately to the north is called the Southern Temperate Zone. So ...

, noting with pride in his journal that he was "undoubtedly the first that ever crossed that line." The next year, Cook circumnavigated Antarctica completely and reached a latitude of 71°10'S before being driven back by the ice. Although Cook failed to see Antarctica, he dispelled once and for all the myth that a fertile, populous continent surrounded the South Pole. Not surprisingly, the British Admiralty lost interest in the Antarctic and turned its attention to the ongoing search for the

Northwest Passage The Northwest Passage (NWP) is the sea route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans through the Arctic Ocean, along the northern coast of North America via waterways through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. The eastern route along the ...

. Almost half a century passed before anyone else is known to have travelled as far south as Cook. In February 1819, while rounding

Cape Horn Cape Horn ( es, Cabo de Hornos, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which are the Diego Ramí ...

, William Smith, the owner and skipper of the English merchant ship , was driven south by adverse winds and discovered what came to be known as the

South Shetland Islands The South Shetland Islands are a group of Antarctic islands with a total area of . They lie about north of the Antarctic Peninsula, and between southwest of the nearest point of the South Orkney Islands. By the Antarctic Treaty of 1 ...

. When news of his discovery reached

, Captain Shirreff of the Royal Navy decided that the matter warranted further investigation. He chartered ''William'' and appointed Bransfield, two midshipmen, and the surgeon from the ship HMS ''Slaney'' to survey the newly discovered islands. Smith remained aboard, acting as Bransfield's pilot. After a brief and uneventful voyage into the Southern Ocean, Bransfield and Smith reached the South Shetland Islands. Bransfield landed on King George Island and took formal possession on behalf of

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 B ...

(who had died the day before, on 29 January 1820). He then proceeded in a southwesterly direction past

Deception Island Deception Island is an island in the South Shetland Islands close to the Antarctic Peninsula with a large and usually "safe" natural harbor, which is occasionally troubled by the underlying active volcano. This island is the caldera of an ac ...

, not investigating or charting it. Turning south, he crossed what is now known as the Bransfield Strait (named for him by James Weddell in 1822), and on 30 January 1820 sighted Trinity Peninsula, the northernmost point of the Antarctic mainland. "Such was the discovery of Antarctica," writes the English writer Roland Huntford. Bransfield made a note in his log of two "high mountains, covered with snow", one of which was subsequently named

Mount Bransfield Mount Bransfield () is a prominent conical-topped, ice-covered mountain, high, rising east-southeast of Siffrey Point, southwest of Cape Dubouzet and north of Koerner Rock, at the northeast tip of the Antarctic Peninsula. The peak was dis ...

Jules Dumont d'Urville Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville (; 23 May 1790 – 8 May 1842) was a French explorer and naval officer who explored the south and western Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica. As a botanist and cartographer, he gave his nam ...

in his honour. Unknown to Bransfield, two days earlier, on 28 January 1820, Russian explorer Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen may have caught sight of an icy shoreline now known to be part of

East Antarctica East Antarctica, also called Greater Antarctica, constitutes the majority (two-thirds) of the Antarctic continent, lying on the Indian Ocean side of the continent, separated from West Antarctica by the Transantarctic Mountains. It lies almos ...

. On the basis of this sighting and the coordinates given in his logbook, Bellingshausen has been credited by some (e.g., British polar historian A. G. E. Jones) with the discovery of the continent. Having charted a segment of the Trinity Peninsula, Bransfield followed the edge of the Antarctic ice sheet in a northeasterly direction and discovered various points on Elephant Island and Clarence Island, which he also formally claimed for the British Crown. He did not sail around Elephant Island and did not name it, although he charted Clarence Island completely. When Bransfield returned to Valparaíso, he gave his charts and journal to Captain Shirreff, who delivered them to the Admiralty. The original charts are still in the possession of the hydrographic department in Taunton, Somerset, but Bransfield's journal has been lost. The Admiralty, it seems, was still more interested in the search for the

. Two private accounts of Bransfield's historic voyage were published during 1821. During recent years the journal of one of the midshipmen, Charles Poynter, was discovered in New Zealand. An account has been published by the

Hakluyt Society The Hakluyt Society is a text publication society, founded in 1846 and based in London, England, which publishes scholarly editions of primary records of historic voyages, travels and other geographical material. In addition to its publishing r ...

, edited by Richard Campbell, RN.

Later life

The remainder of Bransfield's life is obscure. He died on 31 October 1852 at the age of 66 or 67, and was buried in the

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

Extra-Mural Cemetery in southern England. His wife survived him and was buried in the same grave after her death in 1863.

Legacy and honors

Bransfield Island Bransfield Island is an island nearly long, lying southwest of D'Urville Island, Antarctica, D'Urville Island off the northeast end of the Antarctic Peninsula. The name "Point Bransfield", after Edward Bransfield, Master, Royal Navy, was given i ...

, Bransfield Strait, Bransfield Trough, Bransfield Rocks, and

were all named in his honour. In 1999, Edward Bransfield's grave, discovered in a deteriorated state in a Brighton churchyard, was renovated (funded by charitable donations) by Sheila Bransfield. In 2002, she completed a master's thesis on his role in the discovery of Antarctica at the Greenwich Maritime Institute. The event was marked by a ceremony attended by numerous dignitaries. In 2000, the Royal Mail issued a commemorative stamp in Bransfield's honour, but as no likeness of him could be found, the stamp depicted instead RRS ''Bransfield'', an Antarctic surveying vessel named after him. In January 2020, on the 200th anniversary of his discovery of Antarctica, a commemorative monument was unveiled in his hometown of Ballincurra, in County Cork, Ireland. On the same day a blue plaque was unveiled at his former home at 11 Clifton Road, Brighton.

Early life

Antarctic exploration

Later life

Legacy and honors

See also

References

Further reading