Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier was an Irish officer of the Royal Navy and polar explorer who participated in six expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic. In 1843, he became a Fellow of the Royal Society for his scientific work during his multiple expeditions. Later, he was second-in-command to Sir John Franklin and captain of HMS Terror during the Franklin expedition to discover the Northwest Passage, which ended with the loss of all 129 crewmen in mysterious circumstances.
Crozier in 1845
Erebus and Terror in the Antarctic, by James Wilson Carmichael. National Maritime Museum, London.
Francis Crozier monument in Banbridge, County Down, with polar bear supporters.
Francis Crozier memorial inside Seapatrick Church, Banbridge
Sir John Franklin was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. After serving in wars against Napoleonic France and the United States, he led two expeditions into the Canadian Arctic and through the islands of the Arctic Archipelago, in 1819 and 1825, and served as Lieutenant-Governor of Van Diemen's Land from 1839 to 1843. During his third and final expedition, an attempt to traverse the Northwest Passage in 1845, Franklin's ships became icebound off King William Island in what is now Nunavut, where he died in June 1847. The icebound ships were abandoned ten months later and the entire crew died from causes such as starvation, hypothermia, and scurvy.
1828 portrait by Thomas Phillips
Daguerreotype photograph of Franklin taken in 1845, prior to the expedition's departure. He is wearing the 1843–1846 pattern Royal Navy undress tailcoat with cocked hat.
Engraving of Charles Bacon's statue of Franklin in Spilsby in 1861, prior to its installation
"Discoverer of the North West Passage" – a disputed or exaggerated claim on Matthew Noble's 1866 statue of Franklin, Waterloo Place, London