Edward Belcher

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Admiral Sir Edward Belcher, KCB, (27 February 1799 – 18 March 1877) was a British naval officer and explorer. He is the great-grandson of Governor Jonathan Belcher. His wife, Diana Jolliffe, was the stepdaughter of Captain Peter Heywood. He was known as a harsh commander who inspired hatred in his officers. According to a brief history at the Belcher Foundation, "He was a wise, generous, and merciful man who was deeply devoted to the welfare of the men under his leadership."[1]

Belcher was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia and entered the Royal Navy in 1812. At the age of 15 or 16, as a midshipman in the Royal Navy, Belcher invented two improved ship's anchors (models of which are in the collection of the Science Museum, London) 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, and, in 1836, took up the work which Beechey left unfinished on the Pacific coast of South America. This 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 - 1841, and reached home only in 1842.

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. He is commemorated in Hong Kong through Belcher's Street and Belcher Bay in Kennedy Town.

In 1843, he was knighted, and was now engaged in HMS Samarang, in surveying work in the East Indies, the Philippines, Geomun-do (Port Hamilton) and other places, until 1847.

In 1852, he was given command of the government Arctic expedition in search of Sir John Franklin. This was unsuccessful; Belcher's inability to render himself popular with his subordinates was peculiarly unfortunate in an Arctic voyage, and he was not wholly suited to command vessels among ice. Four of the five ships (HMS Resolute, Pioneer, Assistance, and Intrepid)[2] were abandoned in pack ice, for which Belcher was court-martialed but acquitted. One of the ships, HMS Resolute, was later recovered, intact, by an American whaler.

This was Belcher's last active service, but he became K.C.B. in 1867 and an admiral in 1872.

He published a Treatise on Nautical Surveying (1835), Narrative of a Voyage round the World performed in H.M.S. Sulphur, 1836-1842 (1843), Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Samarang during 1843-1846 (1848; the Zoology of the Voyage was separately dealt with by some of his colleagues, 1850), and The Last of the Arctic Voyages (1855); besides minor works, including a novel, Horatio Howard Brenton (1856), a story of the navy.

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.belcherfoundation.org/admiral_sir_edward_belcher.htm
  2. ^ Mowat, Farley (1973). Ordeal by ice; the search for the Northwest Passage (The Fate of Franklin), Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd, 285. OCLC 1391959. 
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