Richard Collinson

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Richard Collinson, 1877
Richard Collinson

Sir Richard Collinson KCB , FRGS (born November 7, 1811 in Gateshead , Durham , † September 13, 1883 on his estate in Ealing ) was an English naval officer and polar explorer .

Life

Collinson volunteered for the Royal Navy when he was twelve , initially on the HMS Cambridge in the Pacific and from 1828 on the HMS Chanticleer took part in coastal explorations off the Antarctic , South America and Central America under the direction of Captain Henry Foster . Collinson first attracted attention here for his diligent and precise operation of the scientific equipment and, as a young officer candidate, already won the support of a number of advocates, including Captain Francis Beaufort , which should accelerate his later advancement in the Royal Navy. He took part in several similar voyages from 1831 to 1839, served under Horatio Thomas Austin , Frederick William Beechey and Edward Belcher and explored the coasts of Alaska and West Africa . In 1835 he was promoted to lieutenant and thus a full officer.

After the outbreak of the First Opium War in China Beaufort landed him a position as explorers, in which he like to the hitherto largely unkartografierten rivers of China Yangtze buoys interpreted that made it possible for the British warships to block the major cities in China on the waterways. For his outstanding achievements, Collinson was promoted to lieutenant captain in 1841 and full captain in 1842. After the end of the war, Collinson initially stayed in China and explored the coastline from Hong Kong to Shanghai .

Finding the Franklin Expedition

In 1849 Collinson was entrusted with the command of the two ships HMS Enterprise and HMS Investigator , which were given the task of finding the Franklin expedition from the Bering Strait, which had been missing for four years . Collinson decided, unlike Robert McClure , the commander of his escort ship Investigator , to circumnavigate the Aleutians at their western end, and so lost valuable days in the all too short arctic summer. While the Investigator advanced to the Prince of Wales Strait in the same year , Collinson first had to surrender to the pack ice and give the order to return to the port of Hong Kong . Some officers disliked Collinson's cautious manner of command management, which the expedition had apparently cost a year, and so on the return trip there were major disputes and the threatened collapse of military discipline.

In the following year it penetrated as far as Point Barrow , wintered in 1851/52 at the southern end of the Prinz-of-Wales-Straße and in the summer of 1852 reached the mouth of the Copper Mine River thanks to a great navigational achievement over the narrow and rocky Dease-Straße . which represented the discovery of a still unknown Northwest Passage . He wintered here for the second time in 1852/53, and in the spring sent out a team of sledges that unfortunately came within 45 km of the final resting place of the Franklin expedition, but then noticed that an earlier expedition under John Rae had already visited the area and gave up the search efforts in this direction. Collinson's men found a piece of wood in the south of Victoria Island that might have been found by the Franklin Expedition, but since supplies were slowly becoming scarce and the all-too-short Arctic summer was imminent, Collinson decided against sending out more sledging parties. On her return voyage in the fall of 1853, the Enterprise was trapped in the ice for the third time, this time near the mouth of the Mackenzie River . It was not until 1854 that he was able to start his journey home through the Bering Strait . Upon his return, Collinson demanded that the rebel officers be properly punished, but the Admiralty failed to do so. Even his most remarkable achievement, the discovery of a (nautically extremely demanding, but proven passable) Northwest Passage, was ignored when the prize money was awarded solely to his companion Robert McClure, and Collinson then failed to ever seek a command in the Royal Navy Endeavor.

However, he remained connected to seafaring and exploration, and from 1858 began a new career with Trinity House , the company entrusted with the maintenance of British waterways and buoys. The Navy finally recognized his achievements retrospectively and promoted him in 1869 to Vice Admiral and 1872 for Admiral .

Sir Richard Collinson died on September 13, 1883 on his estate in Ealing.

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personal data
SURNAME Collinson, Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British Vice Admiral
DATE OF BIRTH November 7, 1811
PLACE OF BIRTH Gateshead
DATE OF DEATH September 13, 1883
Place of death Ealing