James Fitzjames was a British Royal Navy officer who participated in two major exploratory expeditions, the Euphrates Expedition and the Franklin Expedition.
Fitzjames in 1845
The "Victory Point" note.
Franklin's lost expedition
Franklin's lost expedition was a failed British voyage of Arctic exploration led by Captain Sir John Franklin that departed England in 1845 aboard two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, and was assigned to traverse the last unnavigated sections of the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic and to record magnetic data to help determine whether a better understanding could aid navigation. The expedition met with disaster after both ships and their crews, a total of 129 officers and men, became icebound in Victoria Strait near King William Island in what is today the Canadian territory of Nunavut. After being icebound for more than a year Erebus and Terror were abandoned in April 1848, by which point two dozen men, including Franklin, had died. The survivors, now led by Franklin's second-in-command, Francis Crozier, and Erebus's captain, James Fitzjames, set out for the Canadian mainland and disappeared, presumably having perished.
The Arctic Council planning a search for Sir John Franklin by Stephen Pearce, 1851. Left to right are: Sir George Back; Sir William Edward Parry; Edward Joseph Bird; Sir James Clark Ross; Sir Francis Beaufort (seated); Sir John Barrow, Jnr.; Sir Edward Sabine; William A. Baillie-Hamilton; Sir John Richardson; and Frederick William Beechey.
Sir John Franklin was Barrow's reluctant choice to lead the expedition.
Portrait of Jane Griffin (later Lady Franklin), 24, in 1815. She married John Franklin in 1828, a year before he was knighted.
Captain Francis Crozier, executive officer for the expedition, commanded HMS Terror.