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Description: | A relic of Sir John Franklin's last expedition 1845-48. A silver, fiddle-pattern tablespoon owned by Sir John Franklin (1786-1847). The back of the handle bears the Franklin crest-a conger eel's head, between two branches. It was bought from the Inuit at Cape Norton, on the East Coast of King William Island, 7 May 1859 by a party from the McClintock Search Expedition 1857-59 led by McClintock himself.
The inhabitants of King William Island had wooden bows and arrows and naval buttons like the Inuit already encountered on the Boothia Peninsula, but McClintock decided to acquire only items associated with identifiable members of the missing expedition. The spoon has London hallmarks, the date code for 1844-45 and the maker?s mark of George Adams 'G A'. ?W.W? is roughly scratched on the back and front of the handle. Wiiliam Wentzell was an Able Seaman on HMS 'Terror'. He was 33 at the time he joined the expedition and came from London. The initials of crew members marked on officer's silver cutlery suggest that it was distributed amongst the men in an attempt to save it.
Inscription.
caption: Tablespoon
caption: Tablespoon- inscription | Publisher: | "http://collections.rmg.co.uk/" | Rights holder: | "Royal Museums Greenwich" | Subjects: | McClintock Expedition William spoons Fox 1855 Portsmouth Francis Leopold Franklin Wentzell Royal Naval Museum John Terror (1813) McClintock | Source: | Royal Museums Greenwich | Identifier: | http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections... | Go to resource |
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