Sophie Cracroft, the niece of Sir John Franklin, lived an extraordinary life for a 19th century woman. Much of her life was dedicated to her famous uncle and aunt. Sir John Franklin led an expedition in 1843 to find the Northwest Passage which ended as the worst disaster in British Naval history. Many books have been written and at least two movies have been made about Franklin’s last voyage.
The beginning of this story starts in Lincolnshire, England. John was the ninth of twelve children born to Hannah Weeks and Willingham Franklin in Spilsby. Not much is known about John’s siblings. One brother became a judge in Madras, India another brother joined the East Indian Company. A sister, Sarah married Henry Sellwood of Lincolnshire. Their daughter, Emily, was the mother of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, the famous poet. Another brother had a daughter named Isabella. Isabella Franklin married Thomas Cracroft October 13, 1814 in Lincoln, Lincolnshire England.[i] Thomas is the son of Robert Cracroft of Hackthorn Hall. Sophia Cracroft was born in Lincolnshire in 1816.
John Franklin went to school in Louth and at the age of 14 his father secured him a Royal Navy appointment. Franklin participated in the battle of Copenhagen aboard the HMS Polyphemus. His military career took him to battles in the South China Sea, Battle of Trafalgar during war with France and also battles with the U.S. during the war of 1812. Afterwards he participated in expeditions westward along the Canadian coast up to the arctic region to find a water passage from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, called the Northwest Passage.
Franklin returned to England in 1823 and married Eleanor Parlon. They had one daughter, Isabella. Eleanor died of Tuberculosis in 1825. Franklin left for another Canadian/arctic expedition finding new routes, collecting flora and fauna and returned to England in 1828 and he married a friend of his deceased wife, Jane Griffin. He was knighted by King George IV in 1829.
Jane Griffin was no ordinary woman. Her mother passed away when she was four years old. Her father, John Griffin, was a liveryman and governor of the Goldsmith Company.[ii] They were well off and she attained a good education including traveling with her father all over western Europe. She kept detailed journals of their travels which she kept private. Lady Jane relished meeting people, seeing new sites and experiencing different customs and cultures. Carriages or stagecoaches were the primary method of going from city to city, if not walking. Traveling was not safe. There was not always room at the inn. Common necessities familiar to a Lady were not always available. Lady Jane had an indifference to her comfort and her health; she loved the adventure!
When Sir Franklin received an appointment as lieutenant governor of Tasmania in 1837, their niece, Sophia Cracroft, went with them. Did she know what was in store for her? The voyage to Tasmania was by ship and took four months. Tasmania, at that time, was called Van Diemen’s Land, where several penal colonies were established. England transported convicts to Van Diemen’s Land. Male convicts served their sentences by doing free labor for colonists or doing public work. Female convicts served their sentences as servants for free colonists or working in a female factory.
Life was tough, primitive at best, not only for the convicts but for all the people who immigrated to start a new life. Not only did Sophie Cracroft serve as a companion to Lady Jane, she was also her secretary. The duties of a 19th century secretary to a lady were one who scheduled appointments, planned trips, prepared speeches, recorded itineraries, organized and filed all records. A challenging and exciting job for Sophie, as Lady Jane was not one to stay in one place for long.
With his appointment as Lt. Governor of Van Diemen’s Land, Sir John and Lady Jane Franklin had high hopes of improving the penal colony. Their residence was the Government House in Hobart. Sir John did not have any experience as an administrator; he was a decorated war hero, a ship captain and a relentless explorer. From day one he had a difficult time navigating the politics between the gentry who were entrenched in the policies of the previous governor wanting the island to be the jail of the empire using the free labor to help them become richer and the colonists who needed change. Seeing her husband needing help, Lady Jane involved herself in his administration. Even though the British Empire was being ruled by a young woman, Queen Victoria, the overwhelming opinion was women should not meddle in public affairs. Lady Jane’s job as the Governor’s wife was supposed to host and go to social affairs with the wives of upper class of Hobart.
Well, Lady Jane was no typical Lady. Soon after arriving, Lady Jane and Sophie announced they were going exploring along the western and southern coast of Australia. The press said the trip was a selfish whim and unnatural thing for a Lady to do. Sir John said it would be use of him for her to collect information on churches, schools, reform institutions, wool, cattle, agriculture, treatment and management of convicts.[iii]
They became the first Europeans to travel by land from Port Phillip (near Melbourne) to Sydney, a distance of about 550 miles.[iv] The entourage consisted of a cart with luggage, three men on horseback, two mounted police escorts, coachmen, personal servants and a wagon to carry tents including Lady Jane’s personal iron bed, food, cooking utensils, chairs and tables as well as empty crates for her collection of fossils, specimens and curiosities. Traveling on an unestablished road was slow going giving them plenty of time to write the journals and see the terrain. They recorded all the details, squatters and their wives, servants, storekeepers, bushrangers, clergy, Aborigines, notes on passing landscape, crops, sown, harvested, mail deliveries, travelers, building materials, business ventures, poverty, drinking, crime, including hopes and fears of the men and women met along the way.
Sophie recalled two notable instances, among many on their trip. While eating dinner under a tent a ferocious storm suddenly broke overhead. The rain and thunder were so loud no conversation could be heard. Soon a small stream of water appeared under the table and by the time they finished their meal the ground was saturated with water. The terrain was a sticky clay. Clumps of clay stuck to shoes with every step and made it even more slippery. Two gentlemen on the trip carried the ladies on their shoulders to their tent so not to ruin their shoes and clothing.
In the other instance, Sophie was riding a horse when it suddenly spooked and took off running into the woods. The horse threw her to the ground and her head landed on a rock smashing her face. She received a concussion and, of course, her nose bled for some time. Lady Jane wrote in her journal that Sophie endured the pain better than most men she had witnessed to similar accidents. Also, she believed Sophie did not seem to mind the disfigurement while it healed.
Once in Sydney, they surprised the Governor who did not know they were coming. Lady Jane gave speeches, attended a police court and when the press discovered she kept journals, they made fun of her fearing she would publish unfavorable things about their country. Conspiracy theories were published about their un-lady like doings.
Back in Tasmania, two ships stopped in Hobert on their way to Antarctica. The following is from a blog from the Scott Polar Research Institute:
In 1839 the British government, under pressure from the Royal Society and the British Academy, had decided to send an expedition to the Antarctic for Scientific and Geographical research. The two ships, Erebus and Terror, left Moorgate Road on the 30 September 1839 and sailed south, landing at Hobart Town, in the summer of 1840 where they were hospitably received by Sir John Franklin, Lt. Governor of Tasmania, prompting a whirlwind of balls and celebrations. On their return from Antarctica in 1841 the fancy dress ball held aboard the ships to thank the Franklins was the event of the year for Hobart Town. To host the 350 guests, the Erebus and Terror were lashed together draped in red baize and dripping with chandeliers and flowers. More than 250 mirrors were arranged on the sides of the vessels to reflect the flickering candlelight; as the dazzled visitors approached the floating ballroom, the 51st Regiment of the Hobart Town Quadrille Band charmed them along a gangway made from a line of boats decked with flags and the floral emblem of the isle. The biggest naval ball in Tasmanian colonial history, the whole event is still remembered as ‘the Glorious first of June’. With Sir John Franklin presiding in full dress uniform, Lady Jane and Sophia Cracroft by his side, the “Two Captains” were the object of every woman’s dance card. When, just days later, Erebus and Terror departed, Crozier was deeply in love with Sophia, and she with his gallant commander James Clark Ross well known as ‘the handsomest man in the Navy’. [v]
Sadly, when the Franklins returned to England, Capt. Ross was married. Capt. Crozier did pursue Sophie for years but she never married.
During the seven years in Tasmania Sir John and Lady Franklin tried to bring culture to the residents. Using her own money, Lady Jane bought some land to help the poor settlers. She subdivided, rented it cheaply to the farmers. She had a ship built for them to take their goods to the mainland for sale. The only requirement is the settlers had to be teetotalers. She disapproved of the use of alcohol and ran the colony herself. It flourished.
In 1836 Charles Darwin climbed Mt. Wellington, a 4,000 ft. high mountain, located near the capital of Hobert. He found the climb a “severe days’ work”. Sophie and Lady Jane were the first European women to do so and found it so thrilling they wanted other women to have the experience. Lady Jane commissioned shelters be built to rest, one at the springs and one at the summit. It is one of the earliest public recreational buildings in Tasmania.
To encourage science in the region she built a museum which looked like a Greek Temple to display local products and plants. She started the Tasmanian Society to encourage learning.
Not all of her ideas were successful. She started a botanical garden on 130 acres but could not find a botanist to run it. She tried to eradicate snakes by paying a shilling for each killed but the police were not on board with administrating the idea and it failed.
Her plan to improve female convicts did not work because her idea to “straighten them out” was to teach them their sense of the sin they committed.
Sir John Franklin supported his wife in everything she did, much of which, she used her own money to sponsor. Sir John started the Hobart Regatta in 1838 a tradition that still is held every year. The same year he instigated a law forbidding distillation of spirits in Tasmania which remained a law until 1992. He also succeeded in ending the free labor of convicts that many colonists relied on to make themselves rich. They started several public schools including Christ’s College for higher education.
While being popular with the people of Tasmania, the Franklins were very unpopular with the upper and governing class. In 1843 he was recalled to England, a nice way of being fired.
Back in London, Sophie returned home. The British Admiralty decided to form another expedition to find the Northwest Passage. The search for a passage between the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean through the Arctic was a quest which began 300 years before. Sir John Franklin wanted to prove himself again and vied for the position which he won. He chose Captain Francis Crozier to command the ship Terror while Franklin was captain of the Erebus, the same two ships the infamous ball was held in Holbert, Tasmania in 1840.
These iron ships were equipped with the latest technology for a polar trip, steam heated water to keep warm, daguerreotype cameras, a library with 2900 books and two-barrel organs. Provisions for 3 years included cattle, sheep, pigs and hens to be eaten in early stages. Other food was stored in abundance in tin cans, a cutting-edge technology to keep food longer.
In the spring of 1845, the two ships sailed west from the Thames River to go as far as possible before the frozen seas stopped their movement. The Arctic, where temperatures could drop below -48 degrees at night, is a place of heaving seas, frozen fog, unpredictable sea ice and giant moving icebergs. By September of 1846 both vessels were stuck for more than a year in sea ice in a remote area northwest of King William Island. An area where the Inuit rarely went. By September 1848 Franklin was dead including numerous crew members causing men to abandon ship and find some remote settlements for survival. Eventually all men on both ships perished.
After two years without news nor siting’s of the ships the British Admiralty sent search parties to the area with little to no news. Lady Franklin devoted the next 28 years, the rest of her life, to find out what happened to her husband and she wanted Sophie Cracroft to help her.
Over the next 10 years, forty expeditions were launched to find the ships and crew, many artifacts were found but no written records. Lady Franklin was determined to find out what happened and was certain the captain/crew journals would reveal the answers. She wrote to newspapers, world leaders, pushed government officials, and while traveling the world she rallied helpers, and roused public sympathy to help her with her quest. Her fundraising efforts gained much support. She sponsored seven expeditions between 1850 and 1875 first for a rescue effort then for resolution. Each operation brought back valuable information about the topography, plants and animals of the region.
In 1854 John Rae was the first to find news of Sir Franklin’s demise. Inuit provided information about the ships embedded in sea ice on a very remote area northwest of King William’s Island. Both ships were stuck and all 129 men perished. It was not until 2014 archeologists were able to find and study the ships and their contents. They determined that many of the men died of lead poisoning. Lead solder was used to seal the tops of the canned food.
Occasionally Sophie and Lady Jane would travel to the northern point of the British Isles, the Scottish island of Unst, to be a close to the Arctic and where her beloved was to say a prayer.
Spiritualism became popular in the U.S. and England during the 1840’s. This was a belief that a person’s soul after death could be contacted by the living. Sophia and Lady Franklin visited a clairvoyant in London. Sophie acted as an intermediary to ask for details of Ellen Dawson’s visions.[vi] Whether they received the answers they were seeking; it is not documented but they left feeling a connection.
Sophie traveled with Lady Jane all over the world the next 25 years visiting Alaska, the United States, Hawaii, Canada, South America, China, Japan, India and Europe. While traveling along the coast of British Columbia in 1861, Captain Richards of the HMS Plumper named some islands after her. Sophia Isles, East Cracroft Island and West Cracroft Island are small islands and East and West Cracroft islands become one during low tide.
In 1861 Lady Franklin and Sophia visited the Sandwich Islands, now called Hawaii. Sophie wrote extensively to her relatives in England about her experiences and impressions of their visit. Her views demonstrate the belief of British social class of the era. This belief is a hierarchy within a system of heredity passing occupation, social class and political influence. Sophie and Lady Jane were aristocrats which are a step below the highest class of being of royal blood. Upon meeting other British subjects in their travels, they would often write in their journals the peerage lineage if there was one and noted if there was not.
For hundreds of years Hawaii was a stopping place for ships from all European countries to get fresh food and water and to rest before heading further west to the orient. Each country wanted to have the islands as their own colony and the Hawaiians managed to stand alone and they learned what they could from the different cultures who visited their islands. By the time Lady Jane and Sophie stopped for a visit, the King and his family wore western clothing, adopted Christian religion and could speak, read and write in proper English.
Upon arriving on the shores of the main island they were greeted by Robert Willey, the Hawaiian foreign minister. The Hawaiian King and Queen had heard of Lady Jane’s accomplishments and the story of her husband, Sir John Franklin. They paid for their whole stay on the islands. Lady Jane was only planning to say a couple of weeks but ended up staying over two months. She and Sophie traveled all over, visited several islands, missionary schools as well as local hospitals often walking, riding horses and canoes. They were the first European women to climb the volcano Kilauea and look inside. They even were able to witness some traditional Hawaiian traditions, local dress, dance, music and eat local food.
Sophie’s first impression of the King and Queen was the obvious one, the color of their skin. They were brown people, which they automatically associated them as very low class with limited intelligence and ability. What she and Lady Jane learned surprised them. The King was very up-to-date on current affairs, having obtaining and reading newspapers from every ship from every country that came to port. While attending dinners with other British representatives the women conversed how great the British form of government was with a monarchy, house of lords and a house of commons. Then doing the same with American representatives she wrote in all capital letters, THEY BELIEVE THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL! As if that was a bad thing. The King could debate about all forms of government, he was witty, he could dance, sing and even play several musical instruments. Lady Jane and Sophie were surprised to find themselves admiring and really covet his friendship. Years later, after the King passed away, the Queen visited England and stayed with Lady Jane at her apartment in Kensington.
Lady Jane and Sophie went to Japan, India, Alaska and traveled all around the United States. Even when she was in her eighties, Lady Franklin’s attention was still firmly fixed on Arctic matters and in 1875 she took an active interest in the preparations of the expedition by George Strong Nares toward the North Pole and, especially, in Allen Young’s proposed search for Franklin’s records.
Lady Franklin died at the age of 83 on July 18, 1875. Just two weeks before her death she was able to see the erection of a monument to her husband in Westminster Abby. She is buried in Kensal Green, West London. Her steadfast loyalty to finding her husband and later preserving his memory made her a household word throughout the world. Some have said that the exploration of the Canadian Arctic after Sir Franklin’s death achieved more that its success could have done.
With the assistance of her niece, Lady Jane planned a biography of her husband including the disappearance of his expedition. It never came to fruition. After Lady Jane’s death, Sophie worked on it but never finished it. She did share her manuscripts with Franklin’s early biographers which provide much insight about their thoughts and activities of their lives.
Sophia Cracroft never married. Her many journals, letters and papers are located in the Scott Polar Research Institute Archives at the Polar Museum at Cambridge University, UK. Sophia died June 20, 1892 and is buried in London’s Kensal Green Cemetery. While the top memorial stone can be read “IN MEMORY OF LADY FRANKLIN/DIED 18 JULY 1875”; the relentless British weather has worn away the bottom inscription on her tombstone. It did say:
“SOPHIA CRACROFT
THE DEVOTED AND ATTACHED NIECE OF SIR JOHN FRANKLIN
AND CONSTANT AID IN ALL LADY FRANKLIN’S EFFORTS IN
THE FURTHERANCE OF ARCTIC SEARCH FOR TRACES
OF HER HUSBAND AND HIS BRAVE COMPANIONS
DIED 20th JUNE 1892 AGED 76″
The majority of this biography is about Lady Franklin because she is famous. Sophie was very much part of Lady Franklin’s accomplishments as the Lady herself. While opening schools and museums, organizing the many administrative policy changes took many helpers, Sophie was the one to see they were accomplished and she kept records of everything. Not many women in the 19th century traveled around the world on ships, walking, riding horses, elephants, camels and in canoes. It was a time when women were considered chattels and an inferior sex. Aristocratic women learned how to read, write, needlepoint, and dance. Formal education in anything else was considered unladylike, yet these two women were knowledgeable in many of the sciences and administrative tasks, not to mention their openness to see and experience different cultures. They did not follow the common belief at the time that women primary purpose was to procreate and raise children. With all the media attention these two women received in their travels, they paved an early path to women’s rights in the world.
[ii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Franklin
[iii] https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-5174472/view?partId=nla.obj-5175623#page/n11/mode/1up
[iv] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Franklin
[v] https://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/museum/ Cambridge University
[vi] https://www.thethousandthpart.com/notes/the-heart-of-a-broken-timeline
[vii] Photo taken 2024 by Jacob Hume.