The story of John Torrington and the other mummies from the Franklin Expedition serves as a poignant reminder of the ill-fated voyage that set sail for the Arctic in 1845. This expedition aimed to discover a northwest passage but ended in tragedy, with the crew ultimately succumbing to the harsh conditions of the Canadian Arctic.
Among the preserved remains, John Torrington’s body stands out. Discovered on Beechey Island in 1981, his well-preserved state has provided valuable insights into the final desperate days of the crew. The mummification resulted from the cold, dry environment, allowing researchers to study the physical and health challenges faced by the sailors.
In 1845, two ships carrying 134 men set sail from England in search of the Northwest Passage, but they never returned. Now known as the lost Franklin Expedition, this tragic journey ended in an Arctic shipwreck that left no survivors. Much of what remains are the Franklin Expedition mummies, preserved for over 140 years in the ice, including crew members like John Torrington.
These mummies were first officially discovered in the 1980s, and their frozen faces evoke the terror of this doomed voyage. Analysis of the bodies has revealed evidence of starvation, lead poisoning, and cannibalism, shedding light on the crew’s desperate circumstances.
While Torrington and the other mummies were once the only remnants of the expedition, new discoveries have emerged over the years. The two ships of the Franklin Expedition, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, were discovered in 2014 and 2016, respectively. In 2019, a Canadian archaeology team’s drones explored inside the wreck of the Terror for the first time, providing an unprecedented close look at the eerie remains of this grim tale.
The hands of John Hartnell, another member of the Franklin Expedition, were exhumed in 1986 and photographed by Hartnell’s own great-great-grandnephew, Brian Spenceley, further connecting the past to present-day explorers and historians.
The fate of John Torrington and the Franklin Expedition mummies has only recently become clearer, but much of their story remains shrouded in mystery. This haunting tale of terror in the Arctic begins with Sir John Franklin, an accomplished Arctic explorer and officer in the British Royal Navy. After successfully completing three previous expeditions, Franklin set out once more in 1845 to traverse the Arctic.
On the morning of May 19, 1845, John Torrington and 133 other men boarded the ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, departing from Greenhithe, England. Outfitted with state-of-the-art tools and stocked with provisions for three years—including over 32,000 pounds of preserved meat, 1,008 pounds of raisins, and 580 gallons of pickles—the expedition was well-prepared for its journey.
While we know about these preparations, many details of what happened next remain elusive. Five crew members were discharged and sent home within the first three months, but the fate of the remaining men became a mystery after they were last seen by a passing ship in July, somewhere in northeastern Canada’s Baffin Bay. After that, the Terror and Erebus seemingly vanished into the fog of history.
The unfortunate tale of John Torrington and the other Franklin Expedition mummies continues to intrigue researchers. Their frozen remains, discovered decades later, evoke the desperation and challenges faced by the crew. Despite advancements in archaeology and historical research, the exact circumstances of their demise and the details of their harrowing journey remain largely unknown. The ongoing investigations into the wrecks and mummies aim to piece together this tragic story, shedding light on one of history’s most captivating mysteries.
Most experts agree that both ships eventually became stranded in ice in the Arctic Ocean’s Victoria Strait, located between Victoria Island and King William Island in northern Canada. Subsequent discoveries have helped researchers piece together a possible map and timeline detailing where and when things went wrong for the expedition.
Notably, in 1850, American and British searchers found three graves dating back to 1846 on an uninhabited speck of land west of Baffin Bay, known as Beechey Island. Although researchers wouldn’t exhume these bodies for another 140 years, they would later be confirmed as the remains of John Torrington and other Franklin Expedition crew members.
Then, in 1854, Scottish explorer John Rae met Inuit residents of Pelly Bay who possessed items belonging to the Franklin expedition crew. Rae was informed about piles of human bones scattered around the area, many of which were cracked in half, sparking rumors that the crew likely resorted to cannibalism in their final days.
Further evidence emerged from skeletal remains found on King William Island in the 1980s and 1990s, supporting these claims and confirming that the explorers had been driven to desperate measures, possibly due to starvation.
However, the most chilling remains from the Franklin expedition came from a man whose body was astonishingly well-preserved, with his bones—even his skin—remarkably intact. As researchers prepared to exhume John Torrington’s body some 140 years after his death during the Franklin expedition, they uncovered the frozen face of a man who had become an enduring symbol of the expedition’s tragic fate.
Back in the mid-19th century, John Torrington surely had no idea that his name would eventually become famous. In fact, little was known about him until anthropologist Owen Beattie exhumed his mummified body on Beechey Island nearly 140 years after his death, during several expeditions in the 1980s.
A handwritten plaque found nailed to the lid of John Torrington’s coffin revealed that he was only 20 years old when he died on January 1, 1846. Five feet of permafrost buried and essentially preserved Torrington’s remains, sealing his tomb in the ground.
Similarly, the face of John Hartnell, one of the three Franklin Expedition mummies exhumed during the 1986 mission to the Canadian Arctic, offered insights into the expedition’s tragic history and the fate of its crew members.
Fortunately for Beattie and his crew, the permafrost kept John Torrington perfectly preserved and ready to be examined for clues. Dressed in a gray cotton shirt adorned with shell buttons and linen trousers, Torrington’s body was found lying on a bed of wood chips, his limbs tied together with strips of linen, and his face covered with a thin sheet of fabric.
Underneath his burial shroud, the details of Torrington’s face remained intact, including a pair of milky-blue eyes, still open after 138 years.
The crew of the 1986 exhumation mission used warm water to thaw out the frozen Franklin Expedition mummies, facilitating their examination and providing insights into the tragic history of the expedition.
His official autopsy report shows that he was clean-shaven, with long brown hair that had since separated from his scalp. There were no signs of trauma, wounds, or scars on his body, and a marked disintegration of the brain into a granular yellow substance suggested that his body had been kept warm immediately after death, likely by the men who would soon ensure a proper burial.
Standing at 5’4″, the young man weighed only 88 pounds, likely due to the extreme malnutrition he suffered in his final days. Tissue and bone samples also revealed fatal levels of lead, probably due to a poorly canned food supply that affected all 129 members of the Franklin Expedition to some degree.
Despite the thorough postmortem examination, medical experts have not identified an official cause of death. However, they speculate that pneumonia, starvation, exposure, or lead poisoning may have contributed to Torrington’s death, as well as that of his crewmates.
The graves of John Torrington and the other crew members remain on Beechey Island.
