Franklin's Disappearance

When no word of the expedition's progress or whereabouts reached Britain by 1847, Lady Franklin and some members of the Admiralty were worried. In February 1847, Sir James Clark Ross proposed to the Admiralty that it should send a search party to find and rescue Franklin and his men. At this point, however, Ross's view was in the minority. Others pointed out that Franklin had stocked three years' provisions and that his failure to appear after the first year was not unexpected. In this light, the party was unlikely to be in serious trouble or in need of rescue. But when the succeeding months produced no further word of Franklin's party, the Admiralty decided to begin a search by sending boats and a crew to Hudson Bay in preparation for an expedition to be sent down the Mackenzie River the following summer.