A piece of the cheek of a wooden ship's block from the 1845 Northwest Passage Expedition led by Sir John Franklin. The block is carved with a '10' and three broad arrows. The ten indicates it is a ten-inch block.

The ship's block cheek was recovered by the US expedition under Lieutenant Frederick Schwatka between 1878-1880. It is described as 'Item 10. Part of a ship's block found on Adelaide Peninsula part of the north west passage ship' in the 1881 catalogue of items that he sent back to Britain in 1881 [TNA, ADM 1/6600]. This corresponds with the paper label number and description on the block.

Schwatka's expedition found this in the possession of Inuit camped at Wilmot Bay between 12 and 14 November 1879 when Schwatka, Ebierbing and Gilder explored the west side of Adelaide Peninsula. Schwatka recorded '...a piece of ship's block, from the ship lost of Grant Point. The latter was marked with the number 10, or the letters OR, the letter R being imperfect...' [Schwatka, page 101 and confirmed by Gilder, page 200]. Schwatka was told by the Inuit that it came from a large ship found by them off Grant Point. It was abandoned except for the body of a European. The Inuit removed anything useful and the vessel subsequently sank. They also reported finding the footprints of the four last crew members on the shore.

The block cheek is painted in white letters 'PART OF A BLOCK FROM N.W. PASSAGE' and was displayed at the Royal Naval Museum, Greenwich, in 'Case 6. Native tools, &c., obtained from the Ookosiksillik Esquimaux at Hayes River and made of parts belonging to H.M. Ship "Erebus" and "Terror".'