May, Commander Walter William, RN, A Series of Fourteen Sketches, Made on the Voyage up Wellington Channel in Search of Sir John Franklin KCH and the Missing crews of HM Discovery - Ships Erebus and Terror, London 1855.
Walter May was a marine watercolourist known for his fine coastal scenes and images of boats and ships. This treasure provides a record of the expedition commanded by Sir Edward Belcher which was the last in a series to find Sir John Franklin who was lost searching for the North West Passage.
One of the ships on the Belcher expedition was HMS Resolute, some of the timbers from which were used to make the Resolute desk, which has been located in the Oval Office of the White House for many years.
Walter William May (1831-1896), generally known as Captain, was lieutenant on HMS Assistance in Captain Sir Edward Belcher's Arctic expedition 1852 in search of Sir John Franklin. Five ships were involved - HMS Assistance, HMS Resolute, Pioneer, Intrepid and HMS North Star. No trace of Sir John Franklin's expedition was found. Assistance was abandoned in the ice in 1854 and the other ships were left to the same fate. May was promoted to the rank of commander on his return to England from the Arctic expedition and Sir Edward Belcher promoted to admiral. (Reference: Royal Museums Greenwich)
One of the ships on the Belcher expedition was HMS Resolute, which although abandoned in the ice, broke free in the thaw, and was returned to England by the Americans as a gift. It was eventually broken up and the timbers used to make three desks one of which was given to the United States by Queen Victoria and, known as the Resolute desk, has been located in the Oval Office of the White House for many years.
Readers may like to refer to a related treasure - the 8 sketches by Samuel G Creswell made while on board HMS Investigator during the voyage 1850-1854 under Captain Robert McClure again searching unsuccessfully for Sir John Franklin. Investigator was also abandoned in the ice.
The following is an authorised extract from the Royal Collection Trust https://www.rct.uk/collection/1140967/the-last-of-the-arctic-voyages-being-a-narrative-of-the-expedition-in-h-m-s
"Between 1852 and 1854, Sir Edward Belcher commanded what would be the final expedition in search of Sir John Franklin organised by the Admiralty. Franklin’s expedition in search of the north-west passage had not been heard from since 1845 and despite several Admiralty expeditions and yet more funded by Lady Franklin, very little evidence of his fate had been uncovered. Belcher was also ordered to search for Sir Robert McClure, who had been commissioned in 1850 to sail the northwest passage from west to east aboard HMS Investigator, also in search of Franklin.
Belcher led a squadron of five ships to the Arctic: HMS Assistance, HMS Resolute, the steam tenders Pioneer and Intrepid and the store ship HMS North Star. North Star was to remain at Beechey Island to serve as a supply ship while the others continued west. After being frozen in the ice near Melville Island, the expedition split into several parties to explore overland. One party managed to rescue McClure and his men. However, by 1854 Belcher became worried about the safety of his ships and crew and abandoned the search for Franklin. Excepting North Star, Belcher was forced to leave his ships trapped in the ice. Belcher and McClure’s expeditions only managed to return to Britain with the assistance of HMS Phoenix that was also sailing in the region.
Belcher published this account of the expedition in 1855. The same year, an American whaler discovered HMS Resolute adrift in the Davis Strait and the ship was repaired and returned to Britain as a gesture of goodwill by the United States. When it was decommissioned in 1879, the timbers were repurposed and turned into three desks. One of these, known as the Resolute desk, was presented to the American President Rutherford B Hayes by Queen Victoria in 1880. It has been well used by successive presidents and has been used as the president’s desk in the Oval Office almost continuously since 1977."
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