Douglas Charles Clavering

Douglas Charles Clavering (born September 8, 1794 in Edinburgh ( Scotland ), † 1827 lost at sea) was a Scottish captain who achieved fame mainly through his arctic exploration trip.

childhood and education

Douglas Charles Clavering was born on September 8, 1794 at Holyrood House, Edinburgh, to Brigadier General Henry Clavering. He joined the Navy around 1808. He later served as a midshipman on HMS Shannon . He served as a lieutenant in North America and the Mediterranean until 1821.

In the British-American War he distinguished himself in 1821 at the age of 18 in the conflict between the HMS Shannon and the USS Chesapeake .

Research trips

Africa

In 1821 he was appointed commander of HMS Pheasant . Together with the astronomer Edward Sabine , he went on a research trip off the coast of West Africa , where Sabine examined the earth's gravity field with the help of the pendulum-seconds . On this trip, the two men developed a good working relationship. Clavering showed interest in Sabine's research and demonstrated great skill in the field of navigation . On the voyage that took the Pheasant to Sierra Leone , São Tomé , Ascension , Bahia , Maranhão , Trinidad , Jamaica and New York , Clavering made extensive observations of the strength and direction of the equatorial and Gulf currents .

Polar region

In 1823, Clavering was appointed by the Board of Longitude to head a British Navy scientific expedition. The main goal of the trip was to continue Sabine's research, and Clavering was to explore unknown territory. The Arctic Ocean was almost unexplored at the time, and the question of the existence of an ice-free pole was still unresolved. The trip should lead to Norway , Svalbard and the east coast of Greenland .

For this trip, Clavering received the HMS Griper , which was reinforced against the pack ice, but was basically a rather awkward ship. On May 3, 1823 he cast off in Deptford (London) . Sabine set up his first observation station in Hammerfest . On June 23, they drove to Spitzbergen, where Sabine disembarked on June 30 to carry out further observations. Meanwhile, Clavering tried to sail the Griper as far north as possible and break Constantine Phipps' northern record . On July 6th, however, he only reached 80 ° 25 ′ north before the pack ice forced him to return to the research station, where he returned five days later.

On July 23, 1823, they set sail again from Spitsbergen, now towards Greenland. The expedition reached previously unknown coastal areas on the east coast of Greenland. The ice-free sea near the coast allowed Clavering to advance to 75 ° 12 ′ north. From an elevation on Shannon Island , he could make out land masses up to about 76 ° north. In search of a suitable anchorage where Sabine could disembark to continue his research, they returned to the south. On August 14th, Sabine set up his research station on the Pendulum Islands - the island was later to be named Sabine Island after him . Clavering left Sabine to his work and went south in two boats with some men. During this section of the journey an extraordinary meeting took place : he came across a group of 12 Inuit on the coast, whose behavior and appearance he briefly described. Gifts were exchanged. They were men, women and children. They wore long hair and clothes made from animal skins. They had stone tools with them. The ship's crew demonstrated the use of a musket, but the Greenlanders fled during the night, frightened by the pistol shot. They are now considered to be the northernmost inhabitants of East Greenland, and it was the first and only group of Inuit Europeans ever encountered in this now uninhabited region. It remained unclear whether they came from regions even further north or from the south.

On August 29th, Clavering returned with the Griper to Sabine, who had almost finished his research. Clavering had hoped to explore the coast to the north, but decided against it due to weather conditions and the upcoming winter. So he sailed south again, past Cape Broer Ruys to Cape Parry . During the passage of the East Greenland Current , the ship was seriously damaged by the ice before Clavering managed to get free and set course for Trondheim . Once there, Sabine carried out his last observations.

On December 19, 1823, the HMS Griper arrived back in London. According to the London Gazette of 1857, the entire crew was awarded the Polar Medal for their services in exploring the polar regions.

death

In January 1825, Clavering was appointed commander of HMS Redwing , a ship with a crew of 125 and 18 cannons on board. His job was to curb the slave trade on the west coast of Africa. As part of this, on October 5, 1825 , he caught the Spanish slave ship Isabella , commanded by Francisco Granelle, with 273 slaves on board; however, it escaped again a short time later.

The HMS Redwing was lost at sea in 1827, probably near Mataceney ( Sierra Leone ) off the African coast.

His discoveries in East Greenland were only to be repeated by Captain Carl Koldewey , who named a Greenland island after Clavering on the Second German North Polar Expedition .

Publications

Douglas Clavering: Journal of a voyage to Spitsbergen and the east coast of Greenland, in his Majesty's ship Griper New Philosophical Journal, Edinburgh (1830) SPRI Library Shelf Pam 91 (08) (3) [1823 Clavering]

literature

• Ian D. Hodkinson: Clavering, Douglas C. In: Mark Nuttall (Ed.): Encyclopedia of the Arctic . Routledge, New York and London 2003, ISBN 1-57958-436-5 , pp. 358 f . ( limited preview in Google Book search).

Web links

• Clavering Collection , Summary of Clavering's Records, University of Cambridge , accessed November 2, 2017
• The GeoArk Project 2003–2009: Cultural History, Climate and Environment in Holocene North East Greenland , accessed January 9, 2018

Individual evidence

1. ^ Douglas Charles Clavering: Douglas Clavering collection. In: Scott Polar Research Institute Archives, University of Cambridge. Archives Hub, accessed November 2, 2017 . 
2. ^ Percy Bysshe Shelly: The Edinburgh literary journal; or, Weekly register of criticism and belles lettres Edinburgh, 1830, Volume 1, p. 143
3. ^ Douglas Charles Clavering: Journal of a Voyage to Spitsbergen and the East Coast of Greenland, in His Majesty's Ship Griper . In: The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal Vol. 9, 1830, pp. 1-14.
4. ^ Adam Black (Ed.): The Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal , Edinburgh 1830, pp. 2 ff
5. ^ Kylstra, Hans P .: Continuity and discontinuity in the Inuit culture of Greenland. (PDF) University of Groningen. University of Groningen Netherlands, Arctic Center, 1976, p. 38 , accessed on November 2, 2017 (English). 
6. ↑ Per Michelsen: Trappers Station. Arctic Images, 2011, accessed November 2, 2017 . 
7. ↑ Translated by: Archive link ( Memento of the original from March 26, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (French) accessed March 9, 2012 
8. ^ William James Mills: Exploring Polar Frontiers - A Historical Encyclopedia . tape 1 . ABC-CLIO, 2003, ISBN 1-57607-422-6 , pp. 149 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
9. ↑ Polar Record printed in Great Britain for the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge, January 1988, p. 57
10. ^ Naval Database. Ancestry.com Community, accessed November 2, 2017 . 
11. ^ Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 184 by William OS Gilly, Hard Press (November 3, 2006), ISBN 1-4069-1426-6