George Nares
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Admiral Sir George Strong Nares, KCB (24 April 1831 – 15 January 1915) was a British naval officer and Arctic explorer.
The third son of William Henry Nares, another British naval captain, Nares was born at Llansenseld, near Abergavenny in Monmouthshire.
He was educated at the Royal Naval School in New Cross, and in 1845 joined the Royal Navy. Following a posting to the Australian station in 1848 during which he served as both midshipman and mate, he returned in 1851 and attended the Royal Naval College, where he took his lieutenant's exam in 1852.
Nares's first experience of the Arctic came while serving as second mate on Resolute, part of Sir Edward Belcher's squadron on his 1852-1854 expedition in search of Sir John Franklin. Later he was given command of the Challenger Expedition (1872-1876), but, because of his previous experience in the Arctic, he was summoned from this assignment to take charge of another Arctic voyage in search of the North Pole in Discovery and Alert in 1875, the British Arctic Expedition.
On this expedition, Nares became the first explorer to take his ships all the way north through the channel between Greenland and Ellesmere Island — now named Nares Strait in his honor — to the Lincoln Sea. Up to this time, it had been a popular theory that this route would lead to the supposed Open Polar Sea, an ice-free region surrounding the pole, but Nares found only a wasteland of ice. A sledging party under Albert Hastings Markham set a new record farthest north of 83° 20', but overall the expedition was a near-disaster. The men suffered badly from scurvy and were hampered by inappropriate clothing and equipment. Realizing that his men could not survive another winter in the ice, Nares hastily retreated southward with both his ships in the summer of 1876.
In addition to Nares Strait, Nares Mountain and Nares Lake, in Yukon, Canada, are named for him.
He also surveyed the Magellan Strait and several locations in Australia, as well as holding the post of Acting Conservator of the River Mersey.
[edit] References
- The Royal Navy in Polar Exploration from Franklin to Scott, E C Coleman 2006 (Tempus Publishing)
- Sir George Strong Nares biography at Nares Family Tree Web site
