Francis Leopold McClintock

Sir Francis McClintock
Sir Francis McClintock c.1856
Born	8 July 1819 Dundalk, County Louth
Died	17 November 1907
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	Royal Navy
Years of service	1835 - 1884
Rank	Admiral
Commands held	North America and West Indies Station
Awards	Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath

The area searched. From Somerset Island, Peel Strait is to the west, Prince Regent Inlet to the east and Bellot Strait to the south. South of Bellot Strait is the Boothia Peninsula and southwest of that is King William Island where Franklin died.

Admiral Sir Francis Leopold McClintock or Francis Leopold M'Clintock KCB, FRS (8 July 1819 – 17 November 1907) was an Irish explorer in the British Royal Navy who is known for his discoveries in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago.

Biography

Sir Francis Leopold McClintock was the eldest son of Henry McClintock, formerly of the 3rd dragoon guards, by his wife Elizabeth Melesina, daughter of the Ven. George Fleury, D.D., archdeacon of Waterford. His uncle was John McClintock (1770–1855) of Drumcar House. In 1835 McClintock became a member of the Royal Navy as a gentleman volunteer, and joined a series of searches for Sir John Franklin between 1848 and 1859. He mastered traveling by using human hauled sleds, which remained the status quo in Royal Navy Arctic and Antarctic overland travel until the death of Captain Robert Falcon Scott RN in his bid to reach the South Pole. In 1848-49, McClintock accompanied James Clark Ross on his survey of Somerset Island. As part of Capt. Henry Kellett's expedition 1852 to 1854, McClintock traveled 1,400 miles by sled and discovered 800 miles of previously unknown coastline.

In 1854 John Rae (explorer) traveled west from Repulse Bay, Nunavut and learned from the Inuit that a ship had been abandoned somewhere to the west. Previous expeditions had not searched the area because they thought it was ice-blocked. In April 1857 Sir Frances Leopold McClintock agreed to take command of the Fox (ship) (177 tons, 25-man crew), which belonged to Lady Franklin, and search for her husband in the area west of Repulse Bay. At Disko Bay he hired 30 sled dogs and an Inuit driver. It was a bad year for ice and from September he was frozen in for eight months. 1858 was another bad year and he did not reach Beechey Island until August. He entered Peel Sound, found it blocked by ice, backed up, entered Prince Regent Inlet in the hope of passing Bellot Strait. He was glad to extricate himself from this narrow passage and found winter quarters near its entrance. In February 1859, when sledging became practical, he went south to the North Magnetic Pole which had been found by James Clark Ross in 1831. Here he met some Inuit who told him that a ship had been crushed by ice off King William Island, the crew had landed safely and that some white people had starved to death on an island. In April he went south again and on the east coast of King William Island met other Inuit who sold him artifacts from Franklin's expedition. William Hobson, who had separated from him, found the only written record left by Franklin on the northwest corner of the island. They also found a skeleton with European clothes and a ships boat on runners containing two corpses. They got as far south as Montreal Island (Nunavut) and the mouth of the Back River. McClintock returned to England in September 1859 and was knighted. The officers and men of the Fox shared a £5,000 parliamentary reward. The tale was published in The Voyage of the 'Fox' in the Arctic Seas: A Narrative of the Discovery of the Fate of Sir John Franklin and His Companions. London, 1859.

In 1872–1877 McClintock was Admiral-Superintendent of Portsmouth Dockyard. In 1879 he was appointed Commander-in-Chief, North America and West Indies Station. McClintock left the Royal Navy in 1884 as a Rear Admiral. He died on 17 November 1907. He was buried in Kensington Cemetery, Hanwell, Middlesex.

His son, Robert S. McClintock, married Mary, only daughter of Major-General Sir Howard Craufurd Elphinstone.

On 29 October 2009 a special service of thanksgiving was held in the chapel at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, to accompany the rededication of the national monument to Sir John Franklin there. It also marked the 150th anniversary of Sir Francis Leopold McClintock's voyage aboard the yacht Fox.

Admiral Sir Frances Leopold McClintock's Bloodline and family name is still active to date. Several of His Portraits are on display in the National Portrait Galley, London.

Gallery

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  Sir Francis McClintock

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  Cover of The Voyage of the 'Fox' in the Arctic Seas

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  McClintock's Travelling Party Discovering the Remains of Cairn at Cape Herschel - Walter W. May (1855)

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  The 'Fox' on a Rock Near Buchan Island - Walter W. May (1855)

See also

• M'Clintock Channel
• MacKlintok Island
• European and American voyages of scientific exploration
• O'Byrne, William Richard (1849). " McClintock, Francis Leopold".  A Naval Biographical Dictionary. John Murray. Wikisource. 

External links

• Works by Francis Leopold McClintock at Project Gutenberg
• Works by Francis Leopold McClintock at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
• Princeton Essay on McClintock
• British Library Essay on Northwest Passage
• Toronto Library - Search for the Northwest Passage

Military offices
Preceded by Sir Edward Inglefield	Commander-in-Chief, North America and West Indies Station 1879–1882	Succeeded by Sir John Commerell