Jane Franklin 1792 - 1875

1828 - married Sir John Franklin (1786-1847)

Jane Franklin's study of the Arctic was prompted by the disappearance of her husband, Sir John Franklin. He was the expedition commander of the 1845 Arctic expedition to find the Northwest Passage. Jane Franklin was one of the first to suspect that things had gone awry with her husband's expedition. She campaigned ferociously for search and rescue expeditions to be sent to investigate the matter. Amongst her friends, her home became known as 'The Battery', due to volume of letters she penned to the Admiralty and prominent public figures demanding for searches to be mounted. She drew upon her influential political contacts while campaigning and used her own monetary resources to finance the fit out of five search ships between 1850-1857. In 1857, The Fox search ship found definitive evidence with outlined the demise of her husband and his crew. Over the course of organising the numerous search expeditions, Jane Franklin became an expert in the geography of the Arctic, learning as much as she could about the region from afar. The expeditions she financed were crucial in gathering scientific data and mapping the Arctic, contributing significantly to geographical understanding of the region. She subsequently became the first woman to be awarded the Royal Geographical Society's Founder Medal in 1860.