Jane Griffin (Lady Franklin)

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Jane Griffin (Lady Franklin) (4 December 1791 – 18 July 1875), was an early Tasmanian pioneer, traveller and second wife of the explorer John Franklin.

Jane was the second daughter of John Griffin, a liveryman and later a governor of the Goldsmith's Company, and his wife Jane Guillemard. There was Huguenot blood on both sides of her family. She was born in London, was well educated, and her father being well-to-do had her education completed by much travel on the continent. Her portrait painted when she was 24 by Amelie Romilly at Geneva shows her to have been a pretty girl with charm and vivacity.

She had been a friend of John Franklin's first wife, Eleanor Anne Porden, who died early in 1825, and in 1828 became engaged to him. They were married on 5 November 1828 and in 1829 he was knighted. During the next three years she was much parted from her husband who was on service in the Mediterranean. In 1836 he was appointed lieutenant-governor of Tasmania where they arrived on 6 January 1837.

Lady Franklin at once began to take an interest in the colony and did a good deal of exploring along the southern and western coast. In 1839 Lady Franklin became the first European woman to travel overland between Port Phillip and Sydney. In April that year she visited the new settlement at Melbourne, where she received an address signed by 65 of the leading citizens which referred to her "character for kindness, benevolence and charity". With her husband she encouraged the founding of secondary schools for both boys and girls. In 1841 she visited South Australia and persuaded the governor, Colonel George Gawler, to set aside some ground overlooking Spencer Gulf for a monument to Matthew Flinders. This was set up later in the year. In 1841-42 she was the first European woman to travel from Hobart to Macquarie Harbour.

She had much correspondence with Elizabeth Fry about the female convicts, and did what she could to ameliorate their lot. She was accused of using undue influence with her husband in his official acts but there is no evidence of this. No doubt he was glad to have her help in solving his problems, and probably they collaborated in the founding of the scientific society which afterwards developed into the Royal Society of Tasmania. When Franklin was recalled at the end of 1843 they went first to Melbourne and then to England by way of New Zealand. Franklin started on his last voyage in May 1845, and when it was realized that he must have come to disaster Lady Franklin devoted herself for many years to trying to ascertain his fate.

Lady Franklin sponsored four expeditions to find her husband (in 1850, 1851, 1852 and finally in 1857) and, by means of a sizeable reward for information about him, instigated many more. Her efforts made the expedition's fate one of the most vexed questions of the decade. Ultimately evidence was found by Francis McClintock in 1859 that Sir John had died twelve years previously in 1847. Prior accounts had suggested that in the end the expedition had turned to cannibalism to survive, but Lady Franklin refused to believe these stories and poured scorn on explorer John Rae, who had in fact been the first person to return with definite news of her husband's fate.

By 1860 all had been done that could be done, and for the remainder of her life Lady Franklin divided her time between living in England and travelling in all quarters of the world. She died in London on 18 July 1875.

Lady Franklin was a woman of unusual character and personality. One of the earliest women in Tasmania who had had the full benefit of education and cultural surroundings, she was both an example and a force, and set a new standard in ways of living to the more prosperous settlers who were now past the stage of merely struggling for a living. Her determined efforts, in connexion with which she spent a great deal of her own money to discover the fate of her husband, incidentally added much to the world's knowledge of the arctic regions.

The ballad Lady Franklin's Lament commemorated Lady Franklin's search for her lost husband. It was said: 'What the nation would not do, a woman did'.

[edit] References

Persondata
NAME Franklin, Jane
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Griffin, Jane
SHORT DESCRIPTION
DATE OF BIRTH 4 December 1791
PLACE OF BIRTH
DATE OF DEATH 18 July 1875
PLACE OF DEATH London, England
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