5. The possessions of Frederick John Hornby, Mate, HMS Terror (New Data).

Fredrick Hornby was born on 1st July 1819 in Bury, Greater Manchester. His father was the Reverend Geoffrey Hornby and his mother Georgina Byng Hornby. Fredrick joined the Royal Navy on 30th January 1834 at the age of 15 years. His first ship was HMS Dee, which he left after four months to join HMS Wolf. He left Wolf on 7th July 1837 to join HMS Conway as a midshipman. He then served on the following ships: HMS Pelorus; BelleIsle; Vindictive; Magnificent; Imoum; Formidable and Queen.  On May 5th 1841 he passed his examination for promotion. In March 1845 joined the Sir John Franklin expedition as mate aboard HMS Terror. He was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant about two years after sailing with the expedition.

Some of his possessions have been found in several places that hint at his actions on the expedition. Captain Leopold McClintock in 1859 discovered a 6-inch double-frame sextant amongst the abandoned equipment at Crozier’s Landing that was engraved with the name ‘Frederick Hornby, R.N.’.   It had evidently been discarded by the crew before their 1848 retreat.

Captain McClintock in 1859 also discovered a boat containing two skeletons and many artifacts in Erebus Bay.  Aboard the boat were 26 pieces of silver plate – 11spoons, 11 forks and 4 teaspoons. Eight carried Sir John Franklin’s crest, one fork was unmarked and the remainder carried the crests of nine officers, five from Erebus (Gore, Le Vesconte, Fairholme, Couch and Goodsir), three from Terror (Crozier, Hornby and Thomas). Only a single spoon had the crest of Fredric Hornby on it.  The officers had tried to save their silver by sharing it out amongst the crew for the1848 retreat.

In 2019 Parks Canada’s divers excavated the pantry of Sir John Fanklin’s steward Edmund Hoar on the wreck of HMS Erebus off the Adelaide Peninsula of the mainland of the American continent. They found plates stacked 13 high as well as a slim wooden parallel ruler inscribed with the name of Frederick Hornby.  This was not expected as Hornby was a crew member of HMS Terror

So what do the positions of these three personal items of Frederick Hornby tell us about his activities during the lost expedition?   The small sextant at Crozier’s Landing tells us a lot.  There has always been a problem in understanding why so much equipment was transported ashore to be discarded there before the1848 retreat began. McClintock thought it was extra weight thrown away after the retreat reached land in April1848.  However Roobol (2019) suggested that Inuit testimony describing one of the ships being thrown over onto her side was describing HMS Terror in summer 1847. He suggested that concern for the safety of the men of the expedition in the unprotected moving ice field, caused Captain Crozier (then expedition leader) to move his men ashore to Crozier’s Landing where he built a camp with much material salvaged from Terror. The equipment, some of it excess to the retreat, was necessary in case Erebus suffered a similar fate in the ice.  The camp was a base for survival, not just retreat. The following April (1948) the camp became the jumping off point for the 1848 retreat. It seems likely that Frederick Hornby and his fellow shipmates transported and built the camp at Crozier’s Landing.  His small sextant was abandoned with excess equipment when the retreat began in April 1848.   The assortment of officer’s silver in the pinnace found in Erebus Bay does not prove that Hornby accompanied this particular boat, as only one spoon of his was present.

The fragment of Hornby’s personal  parallel ruler (used in navigation) aboard Erebus on the coast of the American continent some 45 miles south of the wreck of HMS Terror is particularly interesting.   It is here that arm-chair detective work begins.  The first step is to form some hypotheses as to what might have happened. The first possibility is that it was used for the navigation of Erebus through the North-West Passage. This does not explain its position in the Captain’s pantry.  Here one must consider the voyage of the remanned Erebus that took her to her final resting place and lasted throughout 1849 and 1850.

Roobol 2019 has suggested that about a half of the men returned to the ships from the failed 1848 retreat. Because Terror was lying on her side with all masts broken, only Erebus was remanned. There is a suggestion of haste in the release and departure of Erebus, probably in summer 1848.  The four-foot high pile of thick winter clothing was never recovered from Croziers Landing. Inuit testimony of a later visit to a remanned ship probably in Terror Bay describes the crew as ‘black men’, with black faces and clothing.  This suggested to Roobol (2019) that like Shackleton’s men in 1914 after their ship (Endurance) was sunk in the Antarctic by ice pressure, they lived for the best part of a year by hunting. Without a change of clothing they and their clothing became black with blubber soot and oil. With the return of Franklin crews to the ships in 1848, there may not have been time to recover all that was needed from Crozier’s Landing as the chance of escape from the ice might have been urgent. Frederick Hornby, if he was still alive, did not collect his sextant which was probably his most precious possession and would have been useful for the voyage of the remanned Erebus.

After the return, Captain Crozier would have assumed command of Erebus with a mixed crew of both Erebus and Terror men.  Perhaps steward Edmund Hoar did not return.  For the man in the Captain’s pantry there was a problem.  The officer’s silverware had been taken out on the 1848 retreat and most of it lost.  Hornby’s parallel ruler may have been used as an additional kitchen utensil. Without the officer’s silverware there would have been only the crew’s iron spoons to use. The fragment of ruler could have made a useful spoon.

QUESTION.  Did Mate Frederick Hornby return to the ships after the 1848 retreat?  If so did he die in the 1850 retreat?