A relic of Sir John Franklin's last expedition 1845-8. A silver tea spoon owned by Captain F.R.M. Crozier (1796-1848). It was found in an abandoned boat at Erebus Bay, King William Island, in May 1859 by the McClintock Search Expedition 1857-9. The spoon has Dublin hallmarks and is dated 1839-40. It has the maker's mark of Josiah Low - the initials 'IL'. The spoon has a crest of a griffin or phoenix engraved on the front of the handle and 'FRMC' on the back near the bowl.
McClintock's party reached this site on the 30 May and discovered that Hobson had been there a few days before on the 18th. The boat was 28 foot long and mounted on a heavy sledge. McClintock found it just above high tide mark pointing back in the direction of the ships and containing a large quantity of abandoned personal possessions and two skeletons. McClintock found none of the iron spoons used by the men, and concluded that the officer's plate had been distributed among the crew to preserve it.
Captain Francis Rawden Moira Crozier was born at Banbridge, County Down on 17 September 1796 and entered the navy on June 12th 1810. He became an experienced polar explorer, taking part in Parry’s second, third, and last expeditions, initially as a midshipman. He was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant just before his departure on Parry’s final expedition- an attempt to reach the North Pole. Crozier accompanied Sir James Clark Ross on a rescue mission to find some whaling vessels trapped in ice in Davis Strait in 1835. Promoted to Commander on 10 January 1837, he served as second in command of Ross’s Antarctic Expedition. Now a Captain, he commanded the ‘Terror’ during Sir John Franklin’s last expedition and took over leadership of the expedition after Franklin’s death. He ordered that the ships be abandoned and their crews head for Back’s River. He perished with the rest of the expedition.