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FOX
Shipbuildervessel built by
Alexander HALL & Co.
(Footdee, Aberdeen)
Date1855
Object NameSTEAM YACHT
MediumWOOD
ClassificationsShip
DimensionsLength: 122ft x Breadth: 23ft x Depth: 12ft 4.5ins
Gross Tonnage: 177 tons.
Gross Tonnage: 177 tons.
Object numberABDSHIP001086
Keywords
Yard Number: 198
Fate: Partially sunk in Godhavn harbour (Qeqertarsuaq, Greenland) in 1912.
Propulsion: Steam
Description: 1 deck, 3 masts, schooner rigged, round stern, carvel built, no galleries, shield figurehead, half poop deck, 20ft engine room containing 2 steam engines, combined horsepower 15. Engines made by Thomson, Hall, Catto & Co.
Subscribing owner:
Sir Richard Sutton, Baronet of Northwood Park, Nottinghamshire, 64 shares.
14/11/1855: Sutton died on November 14th, his will appointed as executors, the Rev. Joseph Banks, Knight of Skelton, clerk, the Rev. Robert Sutton of Averham, clerk both County of Nottingham, John Todd Pratt, barrister, Samueal William Clowes of Woodhouse Eaves, Leicester, joint owners.
30/06/1857: Dame Jane Franklin of 60, Pall Mall, London purchased all 64 shares, 30th June 1857.
(Source: Aberdeen Register of Shipping (Aberdeen City Archives))
1855 FOX belonged to Sir Richard Sutton, 2nd baronet. Master: Capt. James Palmer of Aberdeen sailed Sir R. Sutton to Norway and back and was presented with a silver cup from the passengers, guests of Sir Sutton, 1st September 1855. It was a luxury yacht, having expensive fittings including large glass panels to light below decks.
After Sutton died, on Monday 18th September 1855, the vessel was put up for sale whilst berthed in Aberdeen. It was purchased in 1857 by Lady Franklin and subscribers to act as base for a search for her husband and the team that had accompanied him to try and find a route through the North West Passage. Franklins team had set sail in 1845 and both crews of the vessels (Erebus and Terror) disappeared without trace. Several attempts were made over the following years to try and discover their fate but none were conclusive. To make FOX suitable for the rigours of Arctic exploration the luxury fittings were stripped out, the hull strengthened and the propeller remodelled allowing it to be raised without having to send someone into the water to do so.
July1857 FOX left Aberdeen with Captain McClintock and his team the skipper of the vessel itself being Capt Young. They managed to pass through the Bellot Strait briefly before finding a secure winter anchorage to the east of the Strait off the Boothia Peninsula. Over the next two years extensive expeditions were made by sled to the west of the Boothia Peninsula. On 6 May 1859 Lt. William Hobson, the ship's second in command, discovered in cairns on King William Island official written messages from the missing expedition, stating that Sir John Franklin had died and the remaining members of the expedition had set off on foot in April 1848 to try and reach safety at Back River which they were never to reach. This document was conclusive proof that Franklin and his entire expedition crew had perished and was carried back to Britain by the FOX team and arrived with the news on 20 September 1859.
21/10/1859:
'Lady Franklin has resolved to sell the steam yacht FOX, which so successfully conveyed Captain McClintock and his brother heroes to the fulfilment of their mission.'
(Aberdeen Free Press & Buchan News (p.5))
21/02/1868:
Without effect from 1856 to 1857, Lady Franklin urged the Government [to launch an expedition], and at last, sunk the remnant of her private estate in the purchase of the schooner FOX, and called for Volunteers to man her. Captain McLintock, tried in the Arctic service since 1848, Allen Young, of the Mercantile Marine, who not only sprang forward to share the danger, but contributed £500, Lieutenant Hobson, R.N., Dr Walker of Belfast, and Mr Peterson, the Esquimaux linguist, promptly and gladly responded the call, and the gallant little FOX, in 1857, put forth to fulfil her glorious but solitary mission. The season was bad one in Baffin’s Bay, and the Fox was so late starting that, early in September, McLintock was imprisoned in the iron grip of the Polar pack, where they drifted where it listed. That very same mercy, so often vouchsafed to the explorers in the Polar Seas, watched over their little ship. The FOX weathered all her trials, sound ever, officers and men staunch to their purpose, marvellous to say, after drifting 1190 miles, without the power control. Once released she again was turned to the north-west, the only feeling of regret being fur lost time. By the 27th July, 1858, she had crossed to Lancaster Sound, entered Barrow’s Straits in August, and passed Leopold Island, the place of escape of Sir John Ross, and winter quarters of Sir James Ross, reached Beechy Island, replenished her provisions from the depots left by various expeditions, and pushed southward down Peel’s Channel, whore she was stopped by ice near Cape Walker.
(Peterhead Sentinel and General Advertiser for Buchan District)
28/02/1868:
[Above Continued]
Through Ballot's Straits in the face of tremendous difficulties (its width is but one mile and its length eighteen), with raging tide and current roaring through it, churning and dashing the floating masses of ice in every direction against the frail of his tiny ship. But the other extremity winter again overlook him, and was shut in by the freezing ice. The hardship and monotoney of another winter were, however, borne cheerfully. Hope looked forward to spring. The spring arrived; searching parties were sent out in various directions, stimulated accounts obtained from the natives shipwrecked vessels and starving crews. Young struck to the west, McLintock and Hobson to the south, Hobson taking the western, Mclintock the eastern side King Williams Land, where they gathered fresh and further information from the natives. Mclintock even made a lengthy and rapid journey to Montreal Island, the estuary of the Great Fish River. Point Ogle, and Barrow Island. At Cape Norton, he met an intelligent old woman who confirmed the details they had formerly learned, but added that the starving white men had abandoned their ships, and died on their way to the River.
(Peterhead Sentinel and General Advertiser for Buchan District)
FOX subsequently passed into Danish ownership and worked the west coast of Greenland for 55 years as a supply vessel until its final abandonment. Partially sunk in Godhavn harbour in 1912, the vessel broke up in or around 1940.
Information from Mr Linnet:
'I recovered the propeller shafting and stern tube, with part of the stern. There also is an ingenious arrangement for changing a broken propeller at sea. I have a little ship repair business, and some years ago, we were building a pontoon bridge in Godhavn and recovered those things because they would have otherwise been destroyed. The ice has destroyed most of the hull but the boiler is still in one piece and part of the bottom of the ship. It was built of teak and oak and the fastenings under the waterline are all bronze. She was copper sheathed. The navigational mark on an island outside Godhavn called 'Blubber Island' is made from the FOX funnel and painted red.'
Notes: Contract cost, £5,019 (builder's list held in the Lloyd's Library of the Aberdeen Maritime Museum)
1841
August 1824
