A quartet of Canadian anthropologists has published two papers this week, offering remarkable new detective insights into the fate of the 1845 Franklin Expedition. The expedition, which saw 134 men set out in search of the fabled Northwest Passage, vanished in the High Arctic. Both studies are products of the 21st-century genetics revolution, matching DNA recovered from old human remains with samples from living descendants.
Identification of Crew Members
In one report, human bones from Erebus Bay on King William Island, near the twin wrecks of the expedition's icebound ships, have been positively identified as belonging to three crewmen from HMS Erebus. One matching bone, a humerus, is attributed to an officers' steward named John Bridgens. His half-sister turned out to be an ancestor of a well-known BBC news presenter. Another DNA match identified a skull and mandible as belonging to David Young, who joined the expedition at age 17 with the rank of "Boy, 1st class."
Solving a Century-Old Mystery
The same team, in a second paper, has solved one of the enduring mysteries of Franklin scholarship. In 1859, the skeleton of a dead sailor, unburied, was found alone on the south shore of King William Island. The body was dressed in a torn steward's uniform but carried personal papers belonging to Harry Peglar, the Captain of the Foretop aboard Erebus's sister ship Terror. The skeleton was relocated in 1973 and retrieved for the National Museum of Man, but it was misplaced in the 1980s. Researchers returned to the gravesite between 2019 and 2023, retrieving tiny bones left behind. DNA fragments from a metatarsal and two phalanges matched descendants, confirming the skeleton belonged to Harry Peglar.
The Mystery of Peglar's Uniform
Why did Peglar, a senior petty officer, die in a steward's uniform? His remains were found with a clothes brush, indicating he performed steward duties. The anthropologists suggest Peglar may have been disrated after Terror left England. His service record shows a pattern of offences, including two dozen lashes for "drunkenness and mutinous conduct."
Peglar, who served on anti-slavery and anti-piracy missions and survived the First Opium War, is the closest the expedition has to a voice. The half-legible "Peglar Papers" he carried contain references to Captain Franklin's 1847 funeral and the sledge journey survivors made toward the Canadian mainland, along with an obscene parody of a sea poem.
