A manuscript history of the Franklin family by Sophia Cracroft (1853)

• Published in: Polar Record
• Main Author: McCorristine, Shane
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cambridge University Press (CUP) 2013
• Subjects: General Earth and Planetary Sciences; Ecology; Geography, Planning and Development; Arctic; Polar Record
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0032247413000600; https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0032247413000600

ABSTRACT Sir John Franklin's widow, Jane Franklin, planned a biography of her husband in the years following the disappearance of his expedition. In this project she was directly assisted by her niece and amanuensis Sophia Cracroft. This biography never came to fruition, but it did result in an unpublished manuscript history of the Franklin family, dated 1853, which Cracroft shared with Franklin's early biographers. The manuscript provides an interesting account of the Franklin family, including the detailed circumstances of the failure of the Boston and Spilsby Bank in 1804, which caused great financial and emotional stress. The final section of the manuscript provides an account of John Franklin's early naval career and Arctic expeditions.