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George Strong Nares
24th April 1831, in Llansenseld, Nr. Abergavenny in Monmouthshire (Scotland) - 15th Jan, 1915 in Surbiton, England
Interesting Trivia:
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Joined the Royal Navy in 1845, age 14
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Attended Royal Naval College, where he got the rank of lieutenant in 1852
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Named after him were Nares Strait, Nares Mountain and a Lake in the Yukon (Canada)
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Wrote the Naval Cadet's Guide, later to be known as Seamanship
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Was at the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and steered the first vessel through the canal
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In 1875, had been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society
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Received gold medals from the Royal Geographic Society (1877) and the Société de Géographie de Paris
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1876, received knighthood
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In 1878 he published "Voyage to the Polar Sea”
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District in Greenland is named Naresland, there is a Nares Cape on Ellesmere Island and a Nares County in North Queensland
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Held the post of Acting Conservator of the River Mersey
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Nares did not see exploration as an adventure, but considered it a job. Something where he would have a better chance for promotion
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Married: In1858 (till her death in 1905), Mary Grant (born 1837), 9 children, 2 of which joined the Navy
His Story:
His first posting after being educated at the Royal Naval School was to an Australian station. He served on the ship “Havannah” from 1848 till his return to England in 1851.
In 1852 he joined as a second mate on the ship “Resolute”, with explorer Sir Edward Belcher. The expedition was searching for Sir John Franklin and his team. This is where he had his first experiences with the Arctic as he took part in the sledge search journeys. They did not find Franklins’ party, but were able to rescue Robert McClure and the crew of the “Investigator”. When he returned in 1855, he had been promoted to lieutenant.
He then fought in the Crimean War on the “Glatton” as a gunnery. He wanted badly to go back to the North and hoped that he could join another search party. It was not to be, instead he assisted in setting up training ships for young seamen.
1865 became a turning point in his career, he got the “Salamander” and surveyed the Australian station off the coast of Queensland for the next two years. Then he got the command of the “Newport” in the Mediterranean in 1868. He received the rank of Captain. In 1871, he got the commission of the “Shearwater” for service in the Red Sea.
In December 1872, he was given command of the Challenger Expedition, a cooperation between the Admiralty and the Royal Society. This was to be his first major expedition. He took his nine year old son on this expedition. However, this assignment lasted only for a short period as he was called back in 1874 from this assignment to command another Arctic expedition, this one was in search of the North Pole. The British Arctic Expedition set out with two ships, the “Discovery” and the “Alert” in 1875. It was planned as a geographical exploration expedition (Finding the North Pole). The hope of finding the elusive North-West Passage was also still there. He became the first explorer to take a ship (the “Alert”) all the way north to the Lincoln Sea, reaching Floeberg Beach in 82ºN. In 1876, he returned home as his team was too badly equipped to survive another winter in the Arctic wastelands and several died. They suffered badly from scurvy although they had brought bottled lime juice on the journey (what they did not know was that, in order to preserve the lime juice, it had been previously boiled, thus made useless to fight scurvy.) He got the blame for the failure of the expedition which seems unfair when we look at it now.
In 1878, he took the “Alert” out again for further surveying work in the Magellan Strait, but was recalled again to become the Marine Adviser to the Board of Trade.
He became rear admiral in 1887 and retired in 1892 as a vice admiral.
Te Papa Whale exhibition in Washington, DC