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[Illustration: GRASMERE CHURCH.]
Sir John Franklin was born in 1786. Intended by his parents for the
Church, but bent on going to sea, he joined the Royal Navy when he was
fourteen years of age, and served as a midshipman on the _Bellerophon_
at the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, afterwards taking part in Captain
Flinders' voyage of discovery along the coast of Australia. His first
voyage to the Arctic Regions was in 1818, and after a long and eventful
career he was created Governor of Van Diemen's Land in 1837, whither
criminals convicted of grave offences involving transportation for life
were sent from England, where he did much for the improvement and
well-being of the colony.
On May 19th, 1845, he left England with the two ships _Erebus_ and
_Terror_, having on board 28 officers and 111 men--in all 134 souls--on
a voyage to the Arctic Regions in the hope of discovering the North-West
Passage. They reached Stromness, in the Orkneys, on July 1st, and were
afterwards seen and spoken to in the North Sea by the whaler _Prince of
Wales_, belonging to Hull. After that all was blank.
Lady Franklin did not expect to receive any early news from her husband,
but when two years passed away without her hearing from him, she became
anxious, and offered a large reward for any tidings of him.
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