Francis Crozier
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| Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier | |
|---|---|
| September 1796 – 1848 | |
 Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier |
|
| Place of birth | Banbridge, Kingdom of Ireland |
| Allegiance |  United Kingdom |
| Service/branch |  Royal Navy |
| Years of service | 1810–48 |
| Rank | Royal Navy Captain |
Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier (September 1796–1848?) was born in the Kingdom of Ireland and was a British naval officer who participated in six exploratory expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic. He was named after Francis Rawdon, the 2nd Earl of Moria, who was a friend of his father.
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[edit] Early life
Francis Crozier was born at Avonmore House which still stands today opposite his large memorial in Church Square Banbridge, County Down, Northern Ireland. He was the eleventh of thirteen children, and the fifth son, of attorney-at-law George Crozier, Esq. Francis attended school in Banbridge with his brothers William and Thomas and lived with his family in Avonmore House in the centre of Banbridge which his father had built in 1792.
[edit] Ancestry
His ancestors were of Norman descent and first emerged when they joined the armies of William the Conqueror to invade England in 1066.
A Robert Crozier obtained a grant of land from the Abbot of St Bees in Cumberland in 1262. In the family Arms which is used to this day are four bees and a cross indicating where they obtained their first grant.
The early family consisted of Sir William Crozier (1368), who was Household Steward to John of Gaunt and held the office of Justice in the Eyre for Pleas of the Forest, his son Sir John Crozier (1402) who held many manors in the home counties of England and lived at Stoke D'Abernon in Surrey. Also of the family was William Crozier who in the 1400s was Canon of Glasgow, Archdeacon of Teviotdale, and held many prebends, as well as being a Papal Legate, one of the founding fathers of St Andrews University and a Professor of Logic. He is well recorded in history and was a kinsman of James, Earl of Douglas.
A John Crozier came to Ireland as a Cavalry officer in 1630 with Lord Strafford, prior to that he came from Redworth Hall, County Durham and his family had been there since 1407. Before that time they were in Heversham, Westmoreland which was then part of Yorkshire.
That John Crozier had two sons. The elder son, John, had lands in Fermanagh at Coa, Canvantillycormac, Ardvarny and in County Tyrone at Moorfields and founded the Fermanagh Branch of the family. William the younger son went to County Down and had lands in Stramore, Lower Stramore and The Parke all near to Banbridge, and went on to be the founder of the Banbridge line.
[edit] Naval service
At the age of 13, Crozier volunteered for the Royal Navy and joined HMS Hamadryad in June 1810. In 1812 he served on HMS Briton and in 1814 visited Pitcairn Island, where he met the last surviving mutineers from HMS Bounty.
In 1817 he received his certificate as Mate and in 1818 he served on the sloop Dotterel during a trip to the Cape of Good Hope. In 1821 Crozier volunteered to join Captain William Edward Parry's second expedition (1821–23) to find the Northwest Passage in the vessels HMS Fury and her sister ship HMS Hecla. He returned to the Arctic with Parry in 1824, which resulted in the loss of Fury off Somerset Island. Crozier was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant in 1826 and in 1827 joined Parry's failed attempt to reach the North Pole. During his voyages Crozier became a close friend and confidante of the explorer, James Clark Ross.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1827 after conducting valuable astronomical and magnetic studies on his three expeditions with Parry. He was appointed to the frigate, HMS Stag in 1831 and served off the coast of Portugal during that country's civil war.
Crozier joined James Clark Ross as second-in-command of Cove in 1835 to help search for 12 British whaleships lost in the Arctic. Crozier was appointed to the rank of Commander in 1837.
[edit] Antarctic exploration
In 1839 Crozier again joined James Clark Ross, as second-in-command of a four-year voyage to explore the Antarctic Continent in the ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. Crozier commanded Terror, and in 1841 was appointed to the rank of Captain. Erebus and Terror returned in 1843, having made the most significant penetration of the Antarctic pack ice and discovered large parts of the continent which became synonymous with the 20th century's Heroic Age of Exploration under Roald Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton - including the Ross Sea and Ross Island, Mount Erebus and the Ross Ice Shelf.
Crozier was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1843 in recognition of his outstanding work on magnetism.
[edit] Northwest Passage expedition
In 1845 he joined Sir John Franklin on the Northwest Passage expedition as captain of HMS Terror. After Franklin's death in June 1847, he took command of the expedition, and his fate and that of the other expedition members remained a mystery until a note from him and James Fitzjames, captain of Erebus, the other ship on the expedition, was discovered on King William Island in 1859 during an expedition led by Captain F. L. McClintock. Dated April 25, 1848, the note said that the ships, stuck in ice, had been abandoned. Nine officers, including John Franklin, and 15 crewmen had died, and the survivors were setting out on April 26 for Back's Fish River on the Canadian mainland.[1] McClintock and later searchers found relics, graves, and human remains of the Franklin crew on Beechey Island, King William Island, and the northern coast of the Canadian mainland, but none found any of the men alive.
Crozier is the main protagonist in the historical novel The Terror by Dan Simmons (2007). The book concerns the Franklin expedition, adding a fantastical element to the proceedings.
[edit] Tributes
In January 2008, Crozier's home town of Banbridge, Northern Ireland hosted a memorial event, which included a Service of Remembrance and Thanksgiving at the Church of the Holy Trinity, which was attended by more than 100 descendants of Crozier and other officers of the Franklin expedition and those who searched for it, along with the chairman of the Banbridge Council, and several Arctic historians, including Michael Smith and Russell Potter.[2]
Geographical features named after Crozier include:
- Cape Crozier on the eastern side of Ross Island, Antarctica
- Cape Crozier on the western flank of King William Island in the Canadian Arctic
- Cape Crozier at the western entrance of the Bay of Mercy on Banks Island in the Canadian Arctic
- Crozier Strait which lies between Cornwallis and Bathurst Islands in the Canadian Arctic
- The Crozier River which is found near Fury and Hecla Strait in the Canadian Arctic
- Crozier Point on Spitsbergen in the Arctic north of Norway
- Crozier Channel, to the north of Banks Island in the Canadian Arctic
- Crozier Island in the Kennedy Channel between Greenland and Ellesmere Island
- Crozier Crater, located at 13.5° S, 50.8° E on the Moon's near side
[edit] Works cited
- ^ Savours, Ann (1999). The Search for the North West Passage. New York: St. Martin's Press, 291–93. ISBN 0312223722.
- ^ "Polar First Proves Great Ice-breaker", Banbridge Courier, 23 January 2008, pages 1-2.
[edit] Further reading
- Smith, Michael (2006). Captain Francis Crozier - Last Man Standing? Cork, Ireland: Collins Press. ISBN 1905172095
[edit] External links
- Crozier Banbridge — Craigavon Historical Society
- CFSSUK [1] Mary Fraser, from the Scots Highlands, was Crozier's Great Grandmother, said to be a close cousin of The Fox, the then Lord Lovat, she married a John Crozier in 1694. Members of Clan Fraser were important in developing Canada's trade routes.
