Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Carpenter First Class W. F. Thomlinson, Royal Navy, who served in the Investigator in the Franklin Search Expedition of 1848-49

South Africa 1834-53 (W. F. Thomlinson. Actg. Carpenter 2nd. Class.); Arctic Medal 1818-55, unnamed as issued, very fine (2) £1,500-£2,000

Provenance: Buckland Dix & Wood, July 1993 (South Africa Medal only).

William F. Thomlinson (also recorded as Tomlinson) was born in Stoke Damerel, Devon, on 11 October 1813, and joined the Royal Navy as a Carpenter’s Mate on 19 January 1838, serving in H.M.S. Racehourse, before transferring to H.M.S. Hecla as a Caulker on 28 November 1843. He joined H.M.S. Investigator on 16 April 1848, and served in her during the Franklin search Expedition of 1848-49.

The Investigator sailed in May 1848 to the Arctic in search of John Franklin under the command of Captain Edward Bird. She was accompanied by the Enterprise under Sir James Clark Ross. The ships wintered at Port Leopold. A sledging party departed in the spring for Fury Beach. Ross also went west to Cape Bunny before heading south coming within 50 miles of Cape Bird, had they but known that this was where they should have been searching. The ships were cut free of the ice in August and proceeded down Barrow Strait before getting beset by ice but drifted into Baffin Bay reaching home in November 1849.

Thomlinson subsequently served in H.M.S. Castor from 1 March 1851 and took part in the Third Kaffir War. Advanced Carpenter First Class on 15 January 1862, he was shore pensioned on 8 July 1869, and died in Hooe, Devon, on 13 January 1874.