James Clark Ross
This article is about the British naval ocer and explorer.
For the British Antarctic Survey supply and research
ship, see RRS James Clark Ross.
For other uses, see James Ross (disambiguation).
Sir James Clark Ross (15 April 1800 3 April 1862)
was a British naval ocer and explorer remembered today
for his exploration of the Arctic with his uncle Sir John
Ross and Sir William Parry and, in particular, his own
expedition to Antarctica.
1 Arctic explorer
Ross was born in London, the nephew of Sir John Ross,
under whom he entered the navy in 1812, accompa-
nying him on Sir Johns rst Arctic voyage in search
of a Northwest Passage in 1818. Between 1819 and
1827, Ross took part in four Arctic expeditions under Sir
William Parry, and in 1829 to 1833, again served un-
der his uncle on Sir Johns second Arctic voyage. It was
during this trip that they located the position of the North
Magnetic Pole on 1 June 1831 on the Boothia Peninsula in
the far north of Canada. It was on this trip, too, that Ross
charted the Beaufort Islands, later renamed Clarence Is-
lands by his uncle.[1][2]
In 1834, Ross was promoted to Captain. In December
1835, he oered his services to the Admiralty to resup-
ply 11 whaling ships which had become trapped in Ban
Bay. They accepted his oer, and he set sail in HMS
Cove in January 1836. The crossing was dicult, and
by the time he had reached the last known position of
the whalers in June, all but one had managed to return
home. Ross found no trace of this last vessel, the William
Torr, which was probably crushed in the ice in December
1835.[3] He returned to Hull in September 1836 with all
his crew in good health.
From 18351839, except for his voyage with the Cove,
he conducted a magnetic survey of Great Britain with
Edward Sabine.
2 Antarctic explorer
Main article: Ross expedition
Between 1839 and 1843, Ross commanded an Antarctic
expedition (the Ross expedition) comprising the vessels
HMS Erebus and HMS Terror and charted much of the
1
The Ross expedition in the Antarctic, by John Wilson Carmichael,
1847
coastline of the continent. Francis Crozier was second-in-
command of the expedition and commanded HMS Ter-
ror. Support for the expedition had been arranged by
Francis Beaufort, hydrographer of the Navy and a mem-
ber of several scientic societies. On the expedition was
Joseph Dalton Hooker, who had been invited along as as-
sistant surgeon. Erebus and Terror were bomb vessels
an unusual type of warship named after the mortar bombs
they were designed to re and constructed with extremely
strong hulls, to withstand the recoil of the mortars, which
were to prove of great value in thick ice.[4][5]
In 1841, James Ross discovered the Ross Sea, Victoria
Land, and the volcanoes Mount Erebus and Mount Ter-
ror, which were named for the expeditions vessels. They
sailed for 250 nautical miles (460 km) along the edge of
the low, at-topped ice shelf they called variously the Bar-
rier or the Great Ice Barrier, later named the Ross Ice
Shelf in his honour. In the following year, he attempted
to penetrate south at about 55W, and explored the east-
ern side of what is now known as James Ross Island,
discovering and naming Snow Hill Island and Seymour
Island. Ross reported that Admiralty Sound (which he
named Admiralty Inlet) appeared to Ross to have been
blocked by glaciers at its southern end.[6] He was awarded
the Gold Medal of the Socit de Gographie in 1843,
elected to the Royal Society in 1848 and knighted in
1844.[7]
2 7
3 Search for Franklins lost expedi- 6 See also
tion
In 1848, Ross was sent on one of three expeditions to nd
Sir John Franklin. (The others were the RaeRichardson
Arctic Expedition and the HMS Plover-HMS Herald ex-
pedition through the Bering Strait.) He was given com-
mand of HMS Enterprise, accompanied by HMS Inves-
tigator,[8] Because of heavy ice in Ban Bay he only
reached the northeast tip of Somerset Island where he
was frozen in at Port Leopold. In the spring he and
Francis McClintock explored the west coast of the is-
land by sledge. He recognized Peel Sound but thought
it too ice-choked for Franklin to have used it. (In fact
Franklin had used it in 1846 when the extent of sea ice
had been atypically low.) The next summer he tried to
reach Wellington Channel but was blocked by ice and re-
turned to England.
4 Personal life
He was married to Lady Ann Ross. He died at Aylesbury
in 1862, ve years after his wife. A blue plaque marks
Rosss home in Eliot Place, Blackheath, London.[9] His
closest friend was Crozier, with whom he sailed many
times.
He also lived in the ancient House of the Abbots of St.
Albans in Buckinghamshire. He is buried with his wife
in the local churchyard of St. James the Great, Aston
Abbotts. In the gardens of the Abbey there is a lake with
two islands, named after the ships Terror and Erebus.[10]
5 Tributes
The Ross seal, one of the four Antarctic phocids,
rst described during the Ross expedition[11]
The James Ross Strait, Ross Bay, Ross Point, and
Rossoya in the Arctic are all named after him.[12]
RRS James Clark Ross is a British Antarctic Survey
research ship.[13] [14] North Magnetic Pole Discovered 1 June 1831. History
The crater Ross on the Moon is named after him.[14]
Rosss gull, a small gull, the only species in its genus,
that breeds in the high arctic of northernmost North
America and northeast Siberia[15]
Ross Dependency, Ross Island, Ross Ice Shelf[16]
and Ross Sea in the Antarctic are all named after
him.[12]
REFERENCES
European and American voyages of scientic explo-
ration
7 References
[1] Bossi, Maurizio; Vieusseux, G.P. (1984). Notizie di viaggi
lontani : l'esplorazione extraeuropea nei periodici del primo
Ottocento, 18151845. Naples: Guida. ISBN 88-7042-
399-9.
[2] Woodman, David C. (1991). Unravelling the Franklin dis-
aster : Inuit testimony. McGill-Queens University Press.
[3] Jones, A. G. E. (1950). The Voyage of H.M.S. Cove,
Captain James Clark Ross, 183536. Polar Record. 5
(40): 543556. doi:10.1017/S0032247400045150. Re-
trieved 21 April 2012.
[4] James Clark Ross (1800-1862)". Glasgow Digital Li-
brary. Retrieved 26 February 2016.
[5] Ward, P. (2001). Antarctic expedition, 18391843,
James Clark Ross.
[6] Ross, James Ross (1847). A Voyage of Discovery and Re-
search in the Southern and Antarctic Regions, During the
Years 183943. 2. London: John Murray.
[7] Appletons annual cyclopaedia and register of important
events of the year: 1862. New York: D. Appleton & Com-
pany. 1863. p. 749.
[8] Mowat, Farley (1973). Ordeal by ice; the search for the
Northwest Passage (The Vanished Ships). Toronto: Mc-
Clelland and Stewart Ltd. p. 250. OCLC 1391959.
[9] Sir James Clark Ross 1800-1862 polar explorer lived
here. Open Plaques. Retrieved 28 October 2016.
[10] History - Sir James Clark Ross. Aston Abbotts. Re-
trieved 28 October 2016.
[11] Rienburgh, Beau (2007). Encyclopedia of the Antarctic.
Taylor & Francis. p. 815. ISBN 978-0-415-97024-2.
[12] Ross, Maurice James (1994). Polar Pioneers: John Ross
and James Clark Ross. McGill-Queens Press. ISBN 978-
0-7735-1234-4.
[13] RRS James Clark Ross". British Antarctic Survey. Re-
trieved 28 October 2016.
Channel. Retrieved 21 April 2017.
[15] Rushton, Annabel (9 February 2014). Whos this Ross
character then?". RSPB. Retrieved 28 October 2016.
[16] 1) [Bertrand, Kenneth John, et al, ed.] The Geograph-
ical Names of Antarctica. Special Publication No. 86.
Washington, D.C.: U.S. Board on Geographical Names,
May 1947. 2) [Bertrand, Kenneth J. and Fred G. Al-
berts]. Gazetteer No. 14. Geographic Names of Antarc-
tica. Washington: US Government Printing Oce, Jan-
uary 1956.
 3

8 Bibliography
E. C. Coleman, The Royal Navy in Polar Exploration
From Frobisher to Ross (2006). ISBN 0-7524-3660-
0.

Ray Edinger, Fury Beach: The Four-Year Odyssey

of Captain John Ross and the Victory (2003). ISBN
0-425-18845-0.

9 External links
Works by or about James Clark Ross at Internet
Archive

"Ross, John (explorer)". Appletons Cyclopdia of

American Biography. 1900.
4 10 TEXT AND IMAGE SOURCES, CONTRIBUTORS, AND LICENSES

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