John Torrington

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Grave of John Torrington
Grave of John Torrington

John Shaw Torrington (1825 — 1 January 1846) was an explorer and Royal Navy stoker.[1] He was part of an expedition to find the Northwest Passage, but along with the rest of the crew, including the leader, Sir John Franklin, mysteriously died early in the trip. His body was exhumed in 1984, to try to determine the cause of death.[2] It was the best preserved example of a corpse since the Tollund Man in the 1950s.[3]

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[edit] The Northwest Passage expedition

Torrington was a part of an expedition to find the Northwest Passage, a sea route to Asia, via the northern edge of North America. There were about 128-134 crew members,[1][2][4] who set off from Greenhithe, England in two ships, the HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, on 19 May 1845. The trip was envisioned to last about three years, so the ships were packed with provisions: said to include more than 120,000 pounds of flour, almost 17,000 litres of alcohol and about 8,000 tin cans of meat, soup and vegetables. However, after late July no one heard from or saw the crew again.[2]

[edit] Search expeditions

There were many search parties sent out to look for the missing crew, but until 1850 nothing significant was found. In 1850, the ruins of a stone hut, some food cans, and three graves were stumbled upon — graves of some of the crew members. One of these was Torrington's grave — he had died only about seven months into the expedition. However, this finding only raised further questions as to why they had died so early on, instead of answering any. It was later found that the entire crew had perished, for reasons believed to be poor judgement.[2] In 1976, the graves were relocated on Beechey Island, Nunavut, Canada.[1] In 1980 anthropologist Owen Beattie decided to analyze the bodies and try to solve the mystery.[2]

[edit] Autopsy

After ensuring Torrington's descendants were aware,[3] Beattie and his team began their work on 17 August 1984. Torrington's coffin was six feet under the icy earth, which the team had to dig through.[2] When they got the coffin out and open, they saw how well preserved Torrington's body was, not much different from the day he was buried.[4] In order to thaw the body, the team had to pour water on the ice, section by section in order to melt it. Once thawed, they undressed the body to examine it. They found that Torrington had been very sick at the time of his death — he was so thin all his ribs were visible, and he only weighed about 85 pounds. After taking some body samples, the team set off home to analyse their findings. They concluded Torrington had died from pneumonia, after suffering from various lung problems, which were aggravated by lead poisoning. It seemed the canned food was the cause of this. More tests revealed a high level of lead in all three men. This is probably the chief cause of the expedition's failure.[2] Photographs of Torrington, in a remarkable state of preservation, were published widely, including in People magazine which named him one of the world's most interesting personalities in 1984.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c John Torrington (1825 - 1846) - Find A Grave Memorial. Retrieved on 2007-06-29.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g The Franklin Expedition: Featured Mummy. Retrieved on 2007-06-29.
  3. ^ a b Civilization.ca - Scholars - Archaeological Discovery in Organic Terrain in Canada. Retrieved on 2007-06-29.
  4. ^ a b Sir John Franklin. Retrieved on 2007-06-29.

[edit] Further reading

  • Beattie, Owen; John Geiger [1998]. Frozen In Time: The Fate of The Franklin Expedition (in English). Douglas & Macintyre. ISBN 1-55054-616-3.