Edward Bransfield - Antarctica

Antarctica

During 1773 James Cook sailed beyond the Antarctic Circle—noting with pride in his journal that he was "undoubtedly the first that ever crossed that line.". The next year, he circumnavigated Antarctica completely and reached a latitude of 71° 10', before being driven back by the ice. It was the furthest south anyone had ever gone.

Although he failed to see Antarctica, Cook dispelled once and for all the fanciful notion of a fertile, populous continent surrounding the pole. Not surprisingly, the British Admiralty lost interest in the Antarctic and turned its attention instead to the ongoing search for the Northwest Passage. Almost half a century passed before anyone else travelled as far south as Cook.

Then during 1819 while rounding Cape Horn, William Smith, the owner and skipper of an English merchant ship, the Williams, was driven south by adverse winds and discovered what came to be known as the South Shetland Islands. When news of his discovery reached Valparaíso, Captain Shirreff decided that the matter warranted further investigation. The Williams was chartered and Shirreff appointed Bransfield, two midshipmen and the surgeon from the ship HMS Slaney, who were dispatched to survey the newly discovered islands. Smith remained aboard, acting as Bransfield's pilot.

After a brief and uneventful voyage into the Southern Ocean, Bransfield and Smith reached the South Shetland Islands. Bransfield landed on King George Island and took formal possession on behalf of King George III (who had died the day before on 29 January 1820), before proceeding in a south-westerly direction past Deception Island not investigating or charting it. Turning south, he crossed what is now known as the Bransfield Strait (named for him by James Weddell in 1822), and on 30 January 1820 sighted Trinity Peninsula, the northernmost point of the Antarctic mainland. "Such was the discovery of Antarctica," writes the English writer Roland Huntford.

Unknown to Bransfield, two days earlier, 28 January 1820, the Russian explorer Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen may have caught sight of an icy shoreline now known to have been part of East Antarctica. On the basis of this sighting and the co-ordinates given in his log-book, Bellingshausen has been credited by some (e.g., the British polar historian A. G. E. Jones) with the discovery of the continent.

Bransfield made a note in his log of two "high mountains, covered with snow", one of which was subsequently named Mount Bransfield, by Dumont D'Urville, in his honour.

Having charted a segment of the Trinity Peninsula, Bransfield then followed the edge of the icesheet in a north-easterly direction and discovered various points on Elephant Island and Clarence Island, which he also formally claimed for the British Crown. He did not sail around Elephant Island and did not name it (it is named for elephant seals), although he charted Clarence Island completely.

When Bransfield arrived finally back in Valparaíso he gave his charts and journal to Captain Shirreff who delivered them to the Admiralty. The original charts are still in the possession of the Hydrographic department in Taunton, Somerset, but Bransfield's journal has been lost. The Admiralty, it seems, was still more interested in the search for the Northwest Passage. However, two private accounts of Bransfield's historic voyage were published during 1821.

During recent years the journal of one of the midshipmen, Charles Poynter, was discovered in New Zealand and an account has been published by the Hakluyt Society, edited by Richard Campbell, RN.