After the recent discovery of a portrait of Lt.
John Irving by a fellow Franklinite in an on-line
picture library from Edinburgh called Capital Collections, I thought, why could not I find another portrait of a member of the Franklin expedition in that same place?
I, obviously, took the muster roll of the HMS Terror, and began to check the
origins of her officers. Then, I found that John Smart Peddie, the surgeon of the Terror was from Edinburgh too, like Irving. Well, I have to say that I found nothing in Capital Collections but while I was digging in his life to ascertain where did he came from, I learnt some details about his life which I didn´t know.
First, I was surprised when I learnt that he joined the Franklin Expedition with 29 years old. He had been recently promoted from assistant surgeon to surgeon few months before departing in 1845. Wouldn´t have been more appropiate for an expedition like that a more experienced surgeon? The age of Stephen Stanley, the surgeon of the Terror is not known, so, I have nothing to compare with ...unless I began another study about average ages of surgeons in Polar expeditions, which, thinking on it well, I could do too....why not?.
I read the article named "The men who sailed with Franklin" where is mentioned that previously to get on board the Terror, Peddie, came from the ship "William and Mary", however, it is not mentioned which may have been likely his first appointment. A ship with the evoking name of HMS Sparrow, where he, allegedly, entered the 20th of december of 1836 not long after having obtained the licence of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh as assistant surgeon. Interestingly, the HMS Sparrow was built in Pembroke docks, the same shipyard where it was built the Erebus.
The HMS Sparrow was, during the years 1837-39, part of the
British Naval Expedition to the Falkland Islands commanded by Lt. Robert Lawcay. We have no reasons to think that Peddie did not form part of that expedition, so, if this fact is true, then we would have added a significant piece at his biography.
As I said before, I could not find any portrait of him, not even searching with the key words of "Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh". I thought that all those men might have been portrayed to be shown in a gallery of the college...but they are not. I found, though, which could be the portrait of his father, James Peddie, an architect of Edimburgh, who was born in 1776 and who died in 1837, a year after John Smart Peddie had joined the Royal Navy. Dates and name are coincident, which is not much but for now, and for me, enough to consider it as "likely":
EDITED 1/8/2016
New information provided by Samuel Hare, whose Great-great-great-great grandfather was John Greig Stewart, quartermaster on the Erebus during the Antarctic expedition of 1839-42, confirms my theory. Samuel photographied brother and father´s grave of John Smart Peddie in Inverkeithing, Scotland, a small town located in the Firth of Forth, not far from Edimburgh. He kindly have passed me the pictures of James and Robert´s grave which I have, at the same time, added to the collection of pictures of Arctic explorers on which Stephen, Nicholson and Russell Potter are working for now.
James and Robert´s Peddie grave in Inverkeithing, Scotland
Pictures taken by Samuel Hare.
The plaque on the grave clearly states that James Peddie was an architect, so it seems the little mistery has been solved. The plaque also contains the name of John Smart Peddie, indicating that he sailed with the 1845 expedition in HMS Terror.
Having said that, I would like to add here, that if someone had any information about John Greig Stewart to share with us, it would be very welcome.
What remains of John Smart Peddie is a spoon which must be in some drawer at the Royal Maritime Museum of Greenwich. It seems that it was found in Starvation Cove to be given afterwards by some Inuit to John Rae.
If Peddie was the one who was still using this spoon till the moment it was dropped in the muddy ground of the Starvation Cove beach, then, it was Peddie one of the ones who reached the farthest point of the route. It is a moving thinking consider that Peddie could have been driven by the powerful desire to see his daughter again, a daughter who was born in july of 1844 and baptised in january of 1845.
He could have been one of the few who found strength beyond the human limits to try to save his life pushing his will against the boundaries of his physical and psychical resistance. Unfortunately, he did not succeeded nor his daugther succeeded on surviving too. By the time Peddie was struggling in 1849 against all hope to reach his family, his little daughter was dying in Woolwich, Kent.
As it happened with the vast majority of the 129 men who were on board the Erebus and Terror, Peddie doesn´t have any grave which you could visit to pay respects. From 125 of the men, you can only find pieces of bones and skulls scattered all along King William Island or memorials distributed among Britain and other far places like Hobart in Tasmania.
In the case of John Smart Peddie, he and his daughter were lucky enough to count with a small plaque as an individual
memorial It is in the pathway of a church in Charlton, in the south east of London. This small stone, with some moving words carved on it, still provokes sad feelings on those who read them and it brings you to the reality that each of the men of the Franklin expedition left a life behind.
Those words are slowly dissapearing but they are still visible. Surely, this plaque was ordered by his wife, Eliza Matilda Harcorn, who lived till the year 1906. She surely would have prefered to avoid being witness of how subsequent searching expeditions, year after year, brought news from the arctic with no essential new information. Nothing of which was brought from the arctic told her where his husband had breathed for last time or where his bones were resting.
"In memory of Annie Eliza PEDDIE, daughter of John Peddie, Esq., Surgeon, R.N. and Eliza Matilda, his wife, died 12 February 1849, aged 4½ years.
"Suffer little children to come unto Me, and forbid them not, for us such is the Kingdom of God".
Also in memory of John Stuart Peddie, Esq., father of the above, Surgeon H.M.S. Terror, who perished in the Polar Regions in the Expedition under Capt. John FRANKLIN."
