Anne Strathie’s fourth book on polar subjects, A History of Polar Exploration in 50 Objects: From Cook’s Circumnavigations to the Aviation Age (pub’d late 2024) includes objects, illustrations and stories which shine a light on some of Hull’s many connections to polar history.
In a series of three articles, published between May and July 2025, she will write about the Hull-built whaler, Isabella, a photograph album from an early 1880s Arctic expedition and the remarkable careers of Hull-based mariners, William Colbeck and Alfred Cheetham.
Isabella of Hull
Isabella was launched in 1813 in Hull as a mercantile trading vessel, but in 1817 was acquired by the British Admiralty and fitted out for Arctic exploration. Isabella and three other vessels destined for the Pacific Ocean (two via the North Pole, two via Northwest Passage) would be commanded by officers who were, following the end of the Napoleonic Wars, surplus to requirements but remained ‘on reserve’ on half-pay.
By early May 1818 Ross’s ships were heading for Baffin Bay, which Ross and his men were to survey and re-chart prior to – ice-conditions permitting –heading west into Lancaster Sound and, all being well, into a navigable passage which would emerge through Bering’s Strait into the northern Pacific Ocean.
The charting exercise went well, thanks in part to Ross’s willingness to accept advice and assistance from Hull whaling-masters (who helped release Isabella when she became grounded) and from Inuit people, who demonstrated their dog-sledge driving skills. But soon after Isabella and her sister ship Alexander (captained by Edward Parry) entered Lancaster Sound Ross saw ahead of him, through the mists, what looked like a range of impenetrable mountains blocking his planned route west.
Rather than proceed, he charted the mountains and other features (duly naming them for Admiralty officials) and, after rejoining Alexander, which was some eight miles behind him, ordered that Isabella and Alexander retreat to the Southwest and return to Baffin Bay and thence to London.
Admiralty officials were understandably disappointed – but then became angry with Ross after Edward Parry, Ross’s young nephew James (serving on Isabella) and others indicated that they felt Ross should have continued west in hopes of finding a channel between the mountains which appeared ahead of them.
Before long John Ross was debarred from commanding future Arctic expeditions and by 1819 Edward Parry was (in company of James Ross and others John Ross had commanded) commanding a second attempt to find the Northwest Passage. John Ross was, however, praised for his new charts of Baffin Bay – which were put to good use by whaling-master Richard Humphreys, who commanded Isabella after she was released by the Admiralty and joined the Hull whaling-fleet.
William Parry became the Admiralty’s ‘man of the moment’ after he returned from his first Arctic command having continued beyond 170 degrees west on what appeared to be a navigable Northwest Passage.
But after his subsequent attempts to reach the Bering Strait proved less successful, John Ross decided it was time to redeem his reputation. Thanks to a wealthy friend (Felix Booth of the gin-distilling dynasty), John Ross – again in company with his nephew James – left London in 1829 on Victory, an 85-ton steam-assisted vessel.
Again Ross forged good relations with Inuit people and, despite Victory being regularly frozen in, James Ross and a small party located the North Magnetic Pole. But by spring 1833, with Victory again frozen in, the Rosses were forced to abandon their ship and haul sledges and auxiliary boats for hundreds of miles to the entrance to Lancaster Sound – where they had an outside chance of encountering whaling ships coming north for the season.
After months of gruelling effort, subsisting on what they could catch and tinned provisions abandoned during one of Parry’s expeditions, they reached the shore and took to their boats. In late August 1833, hungry and exhausted from rowing, they saw sails in the distance. As mariners from one of the distant ships approached them, Ross introduced himself.
In response he was told that John Ross and his men were known to have died during a recent Arctic expedition – but that, by coincidence, the ship which had come to the aid of Ross and his man was Isabella, now under the command of whaling-master Richard Humphreys of Hull.
Although Ross had abandoned his ship, he and his companions were congratulated for their dramatic escape and given a heroes’ welcome in Hull and other cities. Ross was knighted and made a Freeman of Hull, James Ross was hailed as ‘the Discoverer of the North Magnetic Pole’ and Captain Humphreys was presented with a silver cup.
John Ross’s representation of him and his men being brought aboard Isabella son became famous from his expedition report, reproduction prints and huge Arctic panoramas – which had, since the initial 1818 expeditions, been regularly displayed in London, around Britain and in Ross’s Stranraer home.
Ross, a great raconteur, enjoyed telling friends and others about his fortunate escape and would regularly present people with one of the cans which had – thanks to Captain Humphreys – proved surplus to requirements.
The Rosses’ second encounter with Isabella had indeed been a fortunate one. James Ross volunteered to repay the favour when, in winter 1835-6 Isabella and other Hull whalers became ice-beset in the Baffin Bay area. Ross and his best friend Francis Crozier (with whom he had sailed on Parry’s expeditions) volunteered to mount a rescue mission on Cove, but they were too late to save Isabella, which was crushed by the ice.
The loss of Isabella and memories of her role in the Rosses’ rescue encouraged an entrepreneurial panorama-maker to recreate scenes of the 1833 rescue and events of 1835-6 – scenes which were enjoyed, it was reported, by some 14,000 Hull residents.
Neither of the Rosses returned to the Arctic for many years, but in the late 1840s, after John Franklin’s ships, Erebus and Terror (the latter captained by Francis Crozier) went missing in the Northwest Passage, John and James Ross volunteered to join Hull whalers and others in the search. But this time there would not be the happy ending provided some twenty years earlier by Captain Humphreys and Isabella.
A History of Polar Exploration in 50 Objects: From Cook’s Circumnavigations to the Aviation Age is published by The History Press.
