16. Officers silverware that was returned from the 1848 retreat.

For the 1848 retreat, the officers had distributed their silverware amongst the crew. McClintock found a small collection of officer’s silver inside the Erebus pinnace in Erebus Bay. The silver along with a collection of watches was gathered together alongside the remains of a very large officer in the stern of the boat. A facial reconstruction of the skull suggests this might have been Ice Master James Reid of Erebus. The silverware had been abandoned with the immobile men unable to return to the ship. However some of the seamen carried their silverware back to Erebus. This is known because McClintock in 1859 met a community of Inuit on eastern King William Island who had many items that they had salvaged from Erebus. They reported that she was ashore and had been much salvaged. Their last visit had been during the previous year (1858) ‘when little remained’ to be salvaged. McClintock purchased a collection of officer’s silverware from these Inuit. This must have been returned to the ship by seamen who had carried it on the 1848 retreat. Two of them had scratched their initials on two tablespoons.
The two seamen were still fit and relatively strong and loyal to their officers, despite the terrible circumstances in which they found themselves. Two silver table spoons, both bearing the crest of Sir John Franklin were described by McClintock (1859, p. 370) in his appendix ‘Relics obtained from the Eskimaux near Cape Norton, upon the east coast of King William Island, in May 1859’. The initials ‘W.W.’ identify Able Seaman William Wentzall of H.M.S. Terror. The other with ‘W.G.’ identifies either William Goddard, Captain of the Hold, H.M.S. Terror or Subordinate Officers Steward William Gibson of H.M.S. Terror. These men did not have to carry the silverware back to Erebus, as they could have discarded it and on their return taken up the iron spoons commonly used by the seamen aboard ship. That they chose to carry silverware belonging to their dead expedition leader back to the ship was a measure of their loyalty to their leader and officers. Presumably the objective was to get the silver home to Lady Franklin, if at all possible.
This little piece of information tells much about the expedition. Two Terror seamen returned in good health from the 1848 retreat. Both carried silverware belonging to the deceased expedition leader Sir John Franklin. But significantly the two Terror men both returned to the remanned Erebus. They did not return to Terror. The ships at the time were about 16 miles from where they had been beset in the ice on 12th September 1846 (1848 record) off the north-western tip of King William Island. The silverware was recovered by the Inuit from the wreck of Erebus when she was ashore near her final resting place at Utjulik off the American mainland. The two seamen are likely to have lived aboard Erebus for some years after their return around June 1848 and helped work the ship through the North-West Passage to Utjulik, which is on the mainland of the American continent. It is interesting that officers silverware was not taken from the ship on the 1850 retreat nor by parties leaving the ship after she arrived at Utlulik, Perhaps by then (1850 or even later) the men realised there was little hope of getting home with the silverware.
Some books belonging to the deceased Commander Graham Gore were found in the pinnace at Erebus Bay by McClintock. Evidently there was hope when the retreat set out that some would succeed and some personal items were taken in the hope of returning them to the families of deceased officers.
What relief and joy the returning survivors must have experienced when they found Erebus to be in good shape and only requiring pumping out one month’s water leakage from inside her. The next priority should have been to get everyone aboard ship and to bring back the surplus stores from the camp at Crozier’s Landing (and possibly anything useful from the abandoned Terror) to be ready should the ship be released in the thaw of late summer 1848. This does not appear to have happened as the pile of winter clothing and Mate Hornby’s sextant were left behind. This suggests there was not enough time to do this before Erebus as released by the ice in summer 1848.
QUESTION: Why carry silverware? Why not discard it and carry more food and fuel?