In 1852, seven years after the Arctic explorer John Franklin's ships HMS EREBUS and HMS TERROR were last seen, Edward Belcher left England on a rescue/recovery mission. Belcher carried a chronometer on his ultimately fruitless search that is on display in the Flamsteel House at the Royal Observatory.
The wreck of the HMS EREBUS was finally located in 2014 by rangers working for Parks Canada, the Canadian Government's equivalent of the US National Park Service.
In 2016, the wreckage of the HMS TERROR was found in Terror Bay near King William Island.
BUT --
Next to Belcher's historic chronometer from the 1852 expedition to find HMS EREBUS in Flamsteel House at the Royal Observatory, is the undamaged chronometer from the 1845 HMS EREBUS expedition to the Arctic.
Therein lies the tale, teased in this adjacent plaque:
"A MYSTERIOUS JOURNEY
The last entry in the chronometer ledgers for this chronometer describes it as lost in the Arctic region along with Franklin's ill-fated ship EREBUS. Yet, the chronometer came to light in the 1970s, although re-cased and with the signature on the dial altered from Arnold to Reynold."
Tantalizing details, but no ultimate solution to the mystery are found in a fascinating article published by the Guardian newspaper: (
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"HOROLOGISTS PONDER MYSTERY OF HOW 19TH-CENTURY CHRONOMETER SURVIVED FATAL ARCTIC EXPEDITION
Timepiece linked to Sir John Franklin's fatal Arctic expedition returns to Britain disguised as a carriage clock
A chronometer which was supposed to have sunk with a ship on the Franklin North-West Passage expedition in 1845, but somehow ended up back in London as a carriage clock.
by Maev Kennedy
Wed 20 May 2009
In a mystery worthy of Agatha Christie, a valuable marine chronometer sits on a workbench in London, crudely disguised as a Victorian carriage clock, more than 150 years after it was recorded as lost in the Arctic along with Sir John Franklin and his crew in one of the most famous disasters in the history of polar exploration.
"I have no answers, but the facts are completely extraordinary," said the senior specialist on horology at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, Jonathan Betts. "This is a genuine mystery."
When and how did the timepiece return to Britain, is it evidence that somebody survived the disaster, or of a crime – even murder?
Betts has no idea – but he does know its shining brass mechanism could never have spent months in the ice, exposed to salt-laden Arctic gales. It must have been stolen from the ship, or from a crew member who cared for it up to the moment of their death.
"This has never been lying around in the open air. I have handled a pocket watch recovered from the expedition, and it is so corroded it is not possible even to open the case. Conditions in the Arctic are so extreme this would have rusted within a day, and been a heap of rubbish within a month."
The chronometer returned to the same building – once the Admiralty store from which it was issued, now Betts' clocks workshop at the Royal Observatory.
The apparent fate of the superb timekeeper, made in London by John Arnold, after it was issued to Sir John's ship, is clear from the official ledger also on Betts' desk. Under "Arnold 294", the faded sepia ink reads: "Lost in the Arctic Regions with the 'Erebus'." In the final entry, on 26 June 1886, more than 40 years after it disappeared, it was officially written off.
The fate of Franklin in 1845, his two superbly equipped ships carrying two years' worth of supplies, including barrels of lemon juice to ward off scurvy, his 129 men who starved, froze and were poisoned to death in the ice, and the suggestion that some survived for a time by cannibalism, haunted the Victorian imagination.
A record 32 rescue expeditions were sent, spurred on by his formidable widow, Jane.
Inuit witnesses described Englishmen dying where they fell in the ice, apparently without ever asking how the natives survived such extreme conditions.
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Rescue expeditions brought back papers recording the death of Franklin, abandoned clothes and equipment, caches of supplies including poorly sealed tins of meat that may have killed many of the men, and eventually skeletons. Every scrap of evidence was recorded – but there is no record of anyone setting eyes on the chronometer again.
It is clear to Betts that whoever converted it into a carriage clock for a suburban mantelpiece knew they were dealing with stolen property. The evidence of a crime concealed is on the dial, where Arnold's name was beaten flat, and an invented maker's name substituted – and then changed back again when the clock was sold 30 years ago and a restorer spotted Arnold's name on the mechanism.
The Observatory bought it when it came up for sale again 10 years ago, but its true history emerged when Betts dismantled it, and matched it with the 19th-century records. None of those who handled it after conversion could have guessed its connection with the Franklin expedition.
It will be on public display for the first time in an exhibition opening on Saturday at the National Maritime museum, on Britain's obsessive quest to find the legendary North West Passage to the east through the Arctic ice, which over centuries cost the lives of Franklin, his men and hundreds of other explorers and sailors.
Among poignant artifacts, including a sledge flag embroidered by his widow with the motto "Hope on Hope Ever", one of the still-sealed cans of meat and the revolting contents of another opened in the 1920s, visitors will see the rather dumpy carriage clock, with three fat little ball feet and a carrying handle crudely bolted onto the chronometer's original brass case.
Betts believes the only possible explanation for the conversion was to make Arnold 294 literally unrecognisable. Stealing a valuable piece of government property from an official expedition would have been a serious crime, punishable by transportation if not death. He yearns to know who dunnit.
• North West Passage: an Arctic Obsession, National Maritime Museum Greenwich, 23 May - 20 January"