The remains of the penal colony at Port Arthur on the Tasman Peninsula.
ANTHONY DALTON
CHAPTER
7
DESPITE HIS EXPRESSED WISH TO be given command of further Arctic endeavours, in 1836 Sir John Franklin was again passed by and left on shore in England, trying to hide his frustration. His despair can only be imagined when his former subordinate, now his equal in rank, Captain George Back, was given command of the navy ship HMS Terror and sent on an expedition to attempt to chart the coastline between Prince Regent Inlet and Point Turnagain. Back was ordered to attempt to make his approach through Wager Bay or Repulse Bay, both in the northwest corner of Hudson Bay. Once again, Franklin’s knowledge of the North and his experience accumulated on three expeditions on land and sea, covering many thousands of miles, was set aside.
Back’s expedition would prove to be a failure, offering little new information for cartographers or the Admiralty, except for the knowledge that both bays were just that and not navigable routes to the west. HMS Terror suffered severe damage from ice in Hudson Bay and staggered back to England in late 1837, with all hands safe and well. Although the expedition had not achieved any of its objectives, Back went on to receive a knighthood for his efforts.
Meanwhile, with no captaincy of a Royal Navy ship on offer and no Arctic expedition available, Franklin needed something to occupy his mind and absorb his energies. He was eventually offered the governorship of Antigua. On advice from others, and especially from Jane, he declined the post. Then he received another offer. Once again, instead of the North, he was asked to go south, but not to a polar region. This time, he accepted; he could do little else. Although the posting was about as far away from England as he could possibly get, an associate at the Admiralty assured Franklin that should a naval ship become available, there was still a possibility that he would get another command. It was, at best, a forlorn hope.
Franklin’s new position would be governor of Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania). Barrow, now Sir John, sent his congratulations. In August 1836, Franklin and Jane set off for Australia with a considerable entourage: 12-year-old Eleanor; two maids; two nieces, Sophia Cracroft and Mary Franklin; Franklin’s aide-de-camp, Alexander Elliot; surveyor, old friend and shipmate John Hepburn; and the Maconochie family. Captain Alexander Maconochie had been recommended to Franklin as a private secretary. Accepting him was to prove a huge mistake. Maconochie’s family included his wife and six unruly children.
At that time, Van Diemen’s Land was home to a penal colony at Port Arthur, a few miles from Hobart Town, with a population of an estimated 18,000 convicts. In addition, the heart-shaped island was home to another 24,000 whites, many of whom were former convicts. The indigenous Aboriginal population had been so decimated by three generations of white incursion and attacks that fewer than 100 were left by the time the Franklins arrived.
The penal colony was a dreadful place in a beautiful setting. Men, women and children, convicts all, lived in a compound with high, grey stone walls on the green Tasman peninsula. Many of them had been jailed for extremely petty crimes, such as stealing a few onions. There were three separate prisons in the area: one for men, one for women and, perhaps the cruellest of all, one for children.
Franklin’s predecessor as governor of Van Diemen’s Land was Colonel George Arthur, a self-serving and unpopular official who had lined his own pockets with as much money as he could during his tenure and earned the mistrust and extreme dislike of his subjects in the process. Franklin was a different governor altogether; he was a religious man and an honest man—the antithesis of George Arthur. The free residents of Van Diemen’s Land looked to their new governor to correct the wrongs perpetrated by his predecessor and to improve their lives, but it didn’t happen. At that time, Sir John was too gentle and too busy trying to please everyone to take a hard line. He saw good in most people, while often failing to look behind the façade. Lady Franklin was perhaps more astute and quicker to judge people, but she was the governor’s wife, not the governor.
The remains of the penal colony at Port Arthur on the Tasman Peninsula.
ANTHONY DALTON
Franklin got off to a bad start by publicly complimenting the recently departed governor and his accomplishments. To add to his problems, two of Colonel Arthur’s nephews by marriage were in positions of power in Hobart Town, one was colonial secretary and the other was the chief police magistrate. Franklin saw no reason to replace them with his own men, so kept them on the payroll. It was another strike against him as far as the citizens were concerned.
Maconochie had hoped to be given the post of colonial secretary. When it became clear that the post was unavailable he also turned against Franklin and began to agitate behind his back. Captain Montagu, the colonial secretary, rather liked Franklin—at first. Montagu wrote, “He is in very bad hands and his Private Secretary [Maconochie], who is a very different person, will ruin him in twelve months and make his government a bed of thorns.”
Maconochie managed to create problems in much less than one year. It only took him three months to undermine Franklin’s position as governor. The outspoken Maconochie is said to have told Lady Franklin that he was aiming for “not only the highest offices of the Executive under the Governor, but for the Governorship itself.” Even the kindly Franklin could not ignore the hostility, and Maconochie was fired. Yet, despite the uncomfortable situation, Maconochie and his family continued to reside at Government House with the Franklins for some time.
Maconochie and his family stayed in Hobart Town until he was recalled to England in 1844. Throughout his sojourn in Van Diemen’s Land, he created dissent and diplomatic difficulties for Governor Franklin. Beyond the Maconochie affair, public infighting between other members of the governor’s senior staff added to his worries.
At times, although she certainly championed her husband, Lady Franklin could create her own tensions. Tasmania is home to three species of venomous snakes. One of Jane’s more bizarre projects was to attempt to eradicate the reptiles from Tasmania. Because a bounty was paid for each snake’s head handed in, the project proved popular with locals, and with the convicts, although it provoked much amusement at Jane’s expense in higher circles. When she lowered the offered bounty by 75 percent, her popularity went down with it. Long believed to be the motivating force behind Sir John, she must have been upset to read a few sarcastic lines about herself in the Colonial Times: “Can anyone for a moment believe that she and her clique do not reign paramount here?”
On August 15, 1840, the Franklins received a visit from a Royal Navy surveying expedition to Antarctica, which hoped to reach the south magnetic pole. Commanded by Captain James Clark Ross with Captain Francis Crozier as his second, the expedition featured two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, both of which would feature largely in Franklin’s future. Lady Jane Franklin insisted the senior officers stay with the Franklins at Government House in Hobart Town during their layover en route to the south. John Franklin, of course, was delighted to have such special company.
The two ships remained in the Hobart Town area for over two months. During those weeks, expedition members established a magnetic observatory overlooking the town. Most of the hard physical construction work was done by a couple of hundred convicts. The ships left in November 1840, and by April 1841, the expedition was back in Hobart Town, having failed to reach the elusive goal of the south magnetic pole due to ice conditions. Instead, they had taken magnetic observations on a series of islands and charted previously unknown sections of Antarctica. They had also named bights, sounds and mountains, including two named after their ships: Mount Erebus and Mount Terror.
Planning to return to Antarctica in the spring, Ross and Crozier spent the next few months working at their observatory, often assisted by the enthusiastic Governor Franklin. They also threw a society ball on the decks of their ships, which was much enjoyed by Hobart Town’s hoi polloi.
There was a hint of romance in the air that Tasmanian autumn. Franklin’s niece, Sophia Cracroft, took a shine to James Clark Ross, even though he was known to have a fiancée in England. Crozier, an Irishman (therefore not considered a gentleman) and a bachelor, fell hard for Sophia, but she ignored his obvious attentions. With Crozier saddened by Miss Cracroft’s lack of interest in him, the expedition ships departed for mainland Australia, New Zealand and again to Antarctica in July.
For the next two years, the diplomatic feuds continued at Government House and in Hobart Town, leaving most of the unpleasantness heaped on Sir John’s shoulders. Franklin and Montagu had fallen out in the autumn of 1841. After that Montagu was said to have adopted a policy of obstruction in his dealings with the governor. Tired of Montagu’s disloyal attitude, Franklin suspended him in January 1842. Montagu returned to England a month later, vowing hatred for Franklin. Montagu’s revenge was not long in coming.
Lord Stanley, the British colonial secretary, who was not one of Franklin’s admirers, offered his official judgement on Montagu’s suspension. In a long dispatch to Franklin in September 1842, he showed himself to be entrenched on Montagu’s side. One paragraph in particular condemns Franklin: “Reluctant as I am to employ a single expression which is likely to be unwelcome to you, I am compelled to add that your proceedings in this case of Mr. Montagu do not appear to me to have been well judged, and that your suspension of him from office is not, in my opinion, sufficiently vindicated.”
Unfortunately for Franklin, the gist of the dispatch was relayed to other sources in Hobart Town, possibly by Montagu himself, who had read the contents only days after Stanley wrote it. The unpleasant parts of the dispatch, those condemning Franklin, were soon spread among the populace by local newspapers and gossip before Franklin had received the full document. Flushed with indignation, Sir John threatened to resign if the British government could not show more confidence in his decisions. It was too little, too late. Although Franklin could not have known it, the decision to replace him had already been made, but the official letter of recall would take six months to reach him. Until that time, he had to stiffen his back, hold his head high and do his best to ignore the often slanderous newspaper reports on his administration.
Finally, suffering under a cloud of political intrigue, Franklin took his extended family home to England at the end of his six-year tenure in 1843. He was sad and disillusioned. The only cure for his ills would be to obtain a command and go back to sea or on another expedition.