PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

British exploration in the first half of the nineteenth century is a well-documented subject: the explorers themselves have been written about, as have the areas they visited, but to my knowledge, the people and places have never before been brought together in a single volume. The reason for doing so now is John Barrow, a shadowy figure who stalks the bibliography of the period but whose role as a father of exploration, fully recognized during his time, seems to have been forgotten. This book attempts to rectify that oversight. It is a narrative rather than a biography and Barrow inevitably plays second fiddle to his explorers. Yet he remains the driving force behind his minions’ more thrilling exploits and I hope that, in dusting down these adventures, I have also managed to reposition him on the shelf-shaky though his pedestal may sometimes seem.

In bringing Barrow and his men to life I have drawn wherever possible on primary sources – of which there are a multitude. Every explorer kept a journal; many of them wrote memoirs. In addition there are literally thousands of letters, diaries, memos and related documents scattered throughout archives in England, Scotland, Ireland, America, Canada and Australia. Digging through this mass of paper would, however, have been an interminable task were it not for the spadework of previous authors, and in this respect I am indebted to Pierre Berton (his Arctic Grail is required reading for polar enthusiasts), Ernest Dodge, Kathleen Fitzpatrick, G. F. Lamb, Christopher Lloyd, Mercedes Mackay, Ann Parry and Francis Woodward, whose life of Lady Franklin is breathtaking given the illegibility of the source material. Thanks must also be given to A. G. E. Jones for his research on John and James Ross, which has been much used but little acknowledged – to judge, at least, from a slightly annoyed note preserved in the Royal Geographical Society archives. And last but not least there is A. Adu Boahen whose heavily footnoted study of Saharan history should be carried by anyone who wishes to explore the PRO's impenetrable Colonial Office microfilms.

In quoting from original letters, I have retained idiosyncracies of punctuation and spelling; they add flavour and also give a small insight into the authors’ personalities. In similar vein, I realize that the Inuit peoples should properly not be called Eskimos, but as Barrow's explorers called them Eskimos – or Esquimaux, which some rhymed with ‘saw’ – I have followed the convention of the time. As regards African place-names, they were spelled in so many different ways, with many of the towns no longer existing or if they do exist being called something else entirely, that I have aimed only for consistency.

One omission in this book is the large part played by America in the search for Franklin – the aftermath of Barrow's final, disastrous attempt to discover the North-West Passage. Henry Grinell, a New York philanthropist, was a major contributor. He spent an estimated $100,000 in kitting out ships for Arctic service. His men endured hardships equal to any suffered by the British, and their characters and conflicts are just as involving. But they were not sent out by Barrow and therefore have been touched upon only fleetingly in this book. In any case, they were not so much searching for Franklin as trying for the North Pole – which is another book in itself.

I would like to express my gratitude to the following institutions for their help and, where appropriate, for permission to reproduce material in their possession: the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the British Library, London; the Colindale Newspaper Library, London; the Derbyshire Record Office, Matlock; the Dumfries Archive Centre; the Kensington and Chelsea Library, London; the London Library; the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford; the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich; the National Portrait Gallery, London; the National Portrait Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh; the National Record of Archives, London; the Natural History Museum, London; the Plymouth Central Library; the Public Records Office, Kew; the Public Records Office of Northern Ireland, Belfast; the Royal Botanic Gardens Library and Archive, Kew; the Royal Geographical Society, London; the Royal Society, London; the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge; and the Somerset Archive and Record Service, Taunton.

I would further like to thank my agent Gillon Aitken and his assistant Emma Parry; my editor Neil Belton; John and Phoebe Fortescue; Becky Hardie and Isobel Rorison at Granta; Jane Robertson for her copy-editing; Andrew Tatham for overseeing my access to the Royal Geographical Society archives; Rachel Rowe and Janet Turner, also of the RGS, for hauling an endless procession of tomes from the back gallery; Robert Headland and Philippa Smith at the Scott Polar Research Institute; and Hugo Vickers. I would also like to mention Claudia Broadhead, Elizabeth Burzacott, Rachel Keating, Sam Lebus and Matilda Simpson.

Finally, for her resolute endurance, sanguine attitude and steadfast forbearance – to use a few phrases from the period – I would like to thank, and dedicate this book to, Elizabeth Hodgson.