A half-length portrait to the right, showing Franklin in his boat cloak. After Thomas Phillips's original (1825), which is now in Birmingham Art Gallery.
Franklin joined the Royal Navy in 1800 and accompanied Matthew Flinders on his circumnavigation of Australia in 1802-1803. He was midshipman in ‘Bellerophon’ at Trafalgar. Still a junior officer at the end of the war, he subsequently became involved in Arctic exploration. Franklin commanded the ‘Trent’ in 1818 in an attempt to find a route to the North Pole through the pack ice north of Spitsbergen. An overland expedition to the Arctic coast in 1819-1822, though not unsuccessful, ended with some loss of life and the near starvation of the survivors. A second overland expedition in 1825-1827 went more smoothly though Franklin's first wife, Eleanor Porden, died during his absence. He remarried Jane Griffin in 1828. Between 1837 and 1844 Franklin served as Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen's Land. On his return to England he accepted the command of an expedition to chart the unexplored gap in the North West passage. His two ships ‘Erebus’ and ‘Terror’ sailed in 1845, their fate only revealed years later, after many search expeditions. Franklin died on board ship while beset off King William Island before his crews abandoned their vessels in a futile attempt to treck south to safety.