Erebus, Terror, Ross, Franklin and Shackleton at Royal Museums Greenwich

A room for British polar exploration

This gallery traces two centuries of British polar exploration, from the search for the Northwest Passage to the early twentieth-century Antarctic expeditions led by figures such as Ernest Shackleton — a field where success and catastrophe have often sat very close together.

1. Ross, the commander who found the north magnetic pole

Commander James Clark Ross, 1800-1862, painted by John Robert Wildman in 1834, shows the explorer in naval uniform, a bearskin draped over his left shoulder, a magnetic dip circle set before him — the very instrument that allowed him to locate the north magnetic pole during his 1829-1833 Arctic expedition. A few years later, Ross would command Britain's first major Antarctic expedition.

2. Two ships that mapped Antarctica

'Erebus' and 'Terror' in the Antarctic, painted by John Wilson Carmichael in 1847, shows the two warships converted for polar exploration, tossed in a passage through the ice, while a whale spouts in the foreground. Carmichael never accompanied James Clark Ross's expedition of 1839-1843 — which mapped much of the continent and gave its name to Mount Erebus — and painted the scene from earlier sketches made on previous Arctic voyages.

3. The Terror already trapped in ice, ten years before Franklin

Perilous Position of H.M.S. Terror, Captain Back, in the Arctic Regions in the Summer of 1837, painted by William Henry Smyth, First Lieutenant aboard the ship during this same voyage, shows the Terror tilted at a dizzying angle amid a vortex of jagged ice. On this 1836-1837 Arctic voyage under Captain George Back, the ship was trapped in pack ice for 118 days at the entrance to Foxe Channel, drifting nearly 200 miles before being freed, badly damaged — thirteen men haul a boat across the ice while others try to salvage supplies.

4. Lost with all hands, painted as an anonymous brotherhood

In 1845 Erebus and Terror set out again, under Sir John Franklin, in search of the Northwest Passage — and vanished along with their 129 crew. Abandoned in the ice in 1848 after Franklin himself died at sea, no survivors were ever found; analysis of human remains discovered later suggests some expedition members resorted to cannibalism in their final months.

'They Forged the Last Links with Their Lives': Sir John Franklin's Men Dying by Their Boat, painted by William Thomas Smith in 1895, draws on the discovery of a boat containing human remains in Erebus Bay by Francis Leopold McClintock's search expedition. Smith painted the figures anonymously, since the records indicated Franklin himself had died before the ships were abandoned — this "anonymous brotherhood of death" foreshadows the commemorative traditions later associated with unknown soldiers. It would take until 2014 for the wreck of the Erebus to be located, and 2016 for the Terror's, thanks in part to information passed down through generations of Inuit who had knowledge of the wreck.

5. Shackleton, the last portrait painted before his death

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton, 1874-1922, painted by Reginald Grenville Eves in 1921, shows the explorer in a brown suit and dark tie, gazing toward the viewer. The portrait was painted a few months before Shackleton set out on his final Antarctic expedition: he died of a heart attack on 15 January 1922, aged 47, upon arriving in South Georgia.

6. Three objects that actually crossed the ice

Sir John Ross, 1777-1856, painted around 1833 and attributed to Henry Hawkins, shows James Clark Ross's uncle in naval civilian dress, chart in hand, before an Arctic camp where his ship Victory can be seen laid up in her winter quarters. This is the same 1829-1833 expedition, funded by the Booth family whose coat of arms appears on the canvas, that left Ross trapped in the ice for over four years before he was rescued — a very different experience from that of his nephew, whose portrait hangs in the same room.

The eleven-foot Nansen-type sledge, ordered by Shackleton in 1907 from the Norwegian firm Hagen & Co, was used on the Nimrod expedition (1907-1909): one of the sledges taken by the "Southern Party" in its attempt to reach the South Pole, reused on the return journey after another sledge broke apart en route. Brought back by Dr Eric Marshall, who had accompanied Shackleton, it spent more than half a century at his old school before entering the museum's collections.

The crow's nest from HMS Discovery, bought in 1874, was used on the 1875-1876 British Arctic Expedition under Captain George Nares: a barrel-shaped structure of yellow pine bound with iron hoops, fixed to the mast with a trapdoor and rope ladder, letting a lookout scan for channels through the ice from beneath a revolving canvas hood. A painted plaque inside still carries its original inscription naming it as Discovery's lookout post.

How much time

The same two ships' names recur from one painting to the next: follow them to trace their path from Antarctic triumph to Arctic tragedy.

Background on the room — 5 minutes.
Commander James Clark Ross (Wildman) — 6 minutes.
'Erebus' and 'Terror' in the Antarctic (Carmichael) — 7 minutes.
Perilous Position of the Terror (Smyth) — 7 minutes.
Franklin's Men Dying by Their Boat (W.T. Smith) — 8 minutes.
Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton (Eves) — 6 minutes.
Sir John Ross (Hawkins) — 7 minutes.
Sledge from the Nimrod expedition — 7 minutes.
Crow's nest from HMS Discovery — 7 minutes.

Sources and verification

Checked against the official notices of Royal Museums Greenwich (rmg.co.uk / collections.rmg.co.uk) and cross-checked with Wikipedia EN/FR.

Displays and room openings can change. Check the Royal Museums Greenwich website on the day of your visit before following a route.

Continue your visit

Royal Museums Greenwich, London

An admiral shot “to encourage the others” Byng’s execution, and a defeated Napoleon watched by sightseers. From Armada triumph to naval disaster A century of English sea power, at its best and its worst.

Listen to the commentary in the gallery

This route gives you a thread to follow. In front of an artwork, CulturAll adds the audio commentary: photograph the work or its label, listen, then ask your questions.

Two glorious ships in Antarctica, vanished without a trace in the Arctic