illuminator newsletter #28

Dec 27, 2023

UPCOMING

–No news yet on dive season.–

13 January 2024

I’ll be reading my last article as a talk in Bath on Saturday January 13th, at the Royal Literary and Scientific Institution. Their Franklin relics will be coming out of storage for the talk. Tickets £8.

https://www.brlsi.org/whatson/the-franklin-relics-at-brlsi/

SINCE THE LAST ISSUE

I recently came across another depiction of the ‘Peglar’ grave discovery, a lantern slide. I’ve appended it to my Peglar sketches article from 2022 (link).

[Direct link to larger image.]

3 December 2023

Alison Freebairn has found details from an eyewitness recollection of the winterizing work on Erebus and Terror at Woolwich.

https://finger-post.blog/2023/12/03/william-lego-erebus-and-terror/

1 December 2023

New in Polar Record: following his previous article on the Erebus Ice Master James Reid, Frank Michael Schuster has returned with a companion piece on the Terror’s Ice Master: Thomas Blanky.

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0032247423000311

12 December 2023

Keith Millar in Polar Record has written an article endorsing the Vitamin B deficiency theory of Robert Park and Douglas Stenton from 2019 (“Use Your Best Endeavours…”, Polar Record #55).

https://doi.org/10.1017/S0032247423000323

4 November 2023

Unfortunately, no DNA could be recovered from the hairs found on the hairbrush recovered from the steward’s pantry on HMS Erebus.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2023.104270

No word yet on who won the Sotheby’s daguerreotypes. – L.Z.