Meet the man who was CANIBALIZED aboard the doomed 1845 Franklin expedition: DNA samples confirm skeletal remains belonged to British First Officer James Fitzjames
The Franklin Expedition of 1845 was perhaps the greatest disaster in the history of British polar exploration.
None of the original 129 crew of Sir John Franklin survived the disaster, and their final horrific days remained shrouded in mystery for nearly 200 years.
Scientists have now revealed a disturbing new detail: they have discovered the identity of a crew member who was eaten during the voyage.
Using genealogical and DNA analysis, researchers discovered that the remains buried on King William Island in Canada belonged to British First Officer Sir James FitzJames.
Co-author Dr Douglas Stenton from the University of Waterloo said: ‘Rank or status were not the guiding principle in the final desperate days of the expedition, when they were trying to save themselves.’
The remains of a sailor eaten aboard the doomed Fraklin expedition of 1845 have been identified as British First Officer Sir James Fitzjames
Researchers have identified a jawbone containing evidence of cannibalism belonging to Captain Fitzjames
The Franklin Expedition set out in 1845 to attempt to find the Northwest Passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic, but the ships became trapped in ice and the crews were forced to abandon them.
The aim of the British Royal Navy’s Franklin Expedition was to find the Northwest Passage, a navigable sea route between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans via the Arctic.
If a safe route north of Canada were found, it could open up new and highly profitable shipping routes.
But despite the fact that the expedition managed to capture two ultra-modern ships, HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, it became trapped in the ice near King William Island.
On Franklin’s orders, 105 officers and crew left the ship to cross King William Island on foot. But weakened by scurvy and freezing temperatures, none of the crew survived the journey.
Bones of the crew have since been found all over the island, but the condition of these remains has caused much controversy.
Captain Fitzjames is just one of 105 crew members who abandoned their ships and perished on King William Island in April 1848
No members of the Franklin expedition survived, but modern analyses indicate that many crew members may have resorted to cannibalism in their final days
The remains of many of the Franklin crew, including Captain Fitzjames, are now marked with a cairn (pictured) on King William Island
In 2013, researchers from the University of Waterloo and Lakehead University excavated an archaeological site containing 415 bones belonging to at least 13 crew members.
The researchers took a DNA sample from a tooth found in the jaw and compared it to cheek swab samples donated by living descendants of the Franklin crew.
This confirmed that the jawbone belonged to the captain of HMS Erebus, Sir James Fitzjames.
Study co-author Stephen Fratpietro of Lakehead University said: ‘We were working with a good quality sample that allowed us to generate a Y chromosome profile, and we were lucky to find a match.’
Captain Fitzjames is now the second member of the Franklin expedition to be identified, following John Gregory, an engineer from HMS Erebus who was identified in 2021.
Captain Fitzjames’ jaw was discovered in 2013 among 415 bones belonging to at least 13 Franklin sailors
Researchers found that the jawbones had cuts and gouges indicating cannibalism. Similar cuts were found on many of the bones of the Franklin survivors
However, while excavating the remains, researchers discovered a number of small cuts on Captain Fitzjames’ jaw.
These marks are a clear sign that the bones were butchered for meat after the death of the individual. This shows that the body of Captain Fitzjames was eaten.
The first evidence of cannibalism was reported by the indigenous Inuit people as early as the 1850s, but no hard evidence has ever been found.
Cannibalism was not proven until 1997 when bioarchaeologist Dr. Anne Keenleyside found similar cut marks on many bones in a large cemetery, proving that at least four of the bodies had been eaten.
Co-author Dr. Robert Park of the University of Waterloo said: ‘It shows how desperate Franklin’s sailors must have been to do something they themselves would have found horrific.’
Captain Fitzjames’ remains were found at a location called NgLJ-2, south of Victory Point, where the decision was made to abandon ships
The fate of the Franklin crew has since been made into a TV miniseries starring Tobias Menzies as Captain James Fitzjames (pictured)
Since their discovery, suggestions of cannabinism among the Franklin crew have been the subject of continued fascination in the media.
The crew’s mysterious final days even inspired the TV miniseries The Terror.
Co-author Dr Robert Park of the University of Waterloo said: ‘Since the expedition disappeared in the Arctic 179 years ago, there has been a great deal of interest in its ultimate fate. This has led to many speculative books and articles and most recently a popular television mini-series that turned the story into a horror story with cannibalism as one of its themes.
‘Careful archaeological research like this shows that the true story is at least as interesting and that there is still much to learn.’
The researchers are calling on any descendants of the Franklin Expedition members to see if their DNA can be used to identify more individuals.
FRANKLIN’S DOOMED EXPEDITION
Sir John Franklin, pictured, was killed with his crew
The expedition, consisting of two ships led by Captain Sir John Franklin of the British Royal Navy, aimed to find a sea route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.
The HMS Terror and HMS Erebus left England in 1845 under the command of Franklin and a crew of 128.
But some time after their departure, the ships became stuck in the thick sea ice of the Canadian Arctic.
Ultimately, this led to the crew dying a freezing death. However, no one knows exactly what happened during the years they were missing.
Searches were sent out, but without results.
The crew’s last message before they were wiped out—sent on April 25, 1848—indicated that there were survivors, but that they were abandoning their ships at that time.
The crew left the two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, north of King William Island and began an arduous journey south to a trading post on the mainland.
The crew were never heard from again, although skeletons and artifacts have since been found at the site connected with their disappearance.
Judging from the bodies found so far, none of the surviving crew made it even a fifth of the way to safety.
It wasn’t until the early 2000s that divers discovered the ships’ wrecks, which were perplexingly far apart. HMS Erebus was found in 2014, followed by HMS Terror in 2016.
