James Clark Ross

Sir James Clark Ross (April 15, 1800 – April 3, 1862), was a British naval officer and explorer. He explored the Arctic with his uncle Sir John Ross and Sir William Parry, and later led his own expedition to Antarctica.

Early life

Ross was born in London. He entered the navy in 1812 under John Ross, whom he accompanied on his first Arctic voyage in search of a Northwest Passage in 1818. Between 1819 and 1827 he took part in four Arctic expeditions under Parry, and in 1829 to 1833 again served under his uncle. It was during this trip that they located the position of the North Magnetic Pole on June 1, 1831 on the Boothia Peninsula in the far north of Canada.

In 1834 Ross was promoted to captain, and from 1835 to 1838 he was employed on the magnetic survey of Great Britain.

Antarctic exploration

Between 1839 and 1843 Ross commanded an Antarctic expedition comprising the vessels HMS Erebus and HMS Terror and charted much of the coastline of the Antarctic continent. Also aboard was Joseph Dalton Hooker who had been invited along as assistant surgeon. Erebus and Terror were bomb vessels - an unusual type of warship named after the mortar bombs they were designed to fire and constructed with extremely strong hulls to withstand the recoil of the mortars which were to prove of great value in thick ice.

In 1841, Ross discovered the Ross Sea, Victoria Land, and the volcanoes Mount Erebus and Mount Terror, which were named for the expedition's vessels. They sailed for 250 miles along the edge of the low, flat-topped ice shelf they called the Victoria Barrier, later named "Ross Ice Shelf" in his honour. In the following year, he attempted to penetrate south at about 55°W, and explored the eastern side of what is now known as James Ross Island, discovering and naming Snow Hill Island and Seymour Island. It is noteworthy that Ross reported that Admiralty Sound was blocked by glaciers at its southern end, providing evidence for a much greater extent for the ice-shelves in Prince Gustav Channel and the northern Larsen Ice Shelf.

On his return Ross was knighted, and was also nominated to the French order of the Legion d'Honneur. In 1847 he published his account of the expedition under the title of A Voyage of Discovery and Research to Southern and Antarctic Regions. He was elected to the Royal Society in 1848, and in that year made his last expedition, as captain of HMS Enterprise, in the first expedition in search of Sir John Franklin. James was married to Lady Ann Ross whose nickname was "Thing". He died at Aylesbury in 1862, five years after his wife.

A blue plaque marks Ross's home in Eliot Place, Blackheath, London.

Tributes

James Clark Ross is the name of a British Antarctic Survey ship.
Ross crater on the Moon is jointly named for him and Frank Elmore Ross.
The town of Ross, CA is named for him.

References

The Royal Navy in Polar Exploration From Frobisher to Ross E C Coleman 2006 ISBN 0-7524-3660-0
The Royal Navy in Polar Exploration From Franklin to Scott E C Coleman 2006