Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

Pair: Surgeon J. O. Goodridge, Royal Navy, who served under Commander (later Captain) Henry Kellet in H.M.S. Starling in China and in H.M.S. Herald in the Arctic 1845-51 in search of Sir John Franklin

China 1842 (J. O. Goodridge, Asst. Surgn., H.M.S. Starling.); Arctic Medal 1818-55, unnamed as issued, suspension on the second with neat repair and refitted, minor edge bruising, otherwise good very fine (2) £3,000-£4,000

Dix Noonan Webb, September 2004.

John Octavius Goodridge was born circa 1810 or 1811 and was appointed an Assistant Surgeon in the Royal Navy on 17 September 1835. He was assistant Surgeon in H.M.S. Starling during the First China war, and was serving aboard H.M.S. Hermes when promoted to Surgeon on 20 September 1843, and appointed to H,M.S. Royal William. He was appointed as Surgeon to Herald on 10 February 1845, this ship, in company with Plover, being engaged on surveying work in the Pacific from 1846. Both ships were sent to the Bering Strait to await the arrival of Franklin. Sailing south for the winter Herald was in the Arctic in 1848 and for short periods in 1849 and 1850. During the surveying work both Herald Island and the Plover Islands were discovered and charted while Surgeon Goodridge had the honour of his name being given to the Goodridge Islands and Goodridge Peninsula on the coast of British Columbia. He served in Herald until 16 June 1851, when he was paid off having invalided himself with a rectal prolapse and stricture, and being deemed ‘unfit for further service at sea.’ In retirement he lived at Childe Okeford, Dorset, where he died on 25 November 1865, from a septic finger, aged 57. He had married on 28 April 1852, and had three sons and a daughter.

Sold with a folder of research, including extracts from the ‘Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Herald during the years 1845-51’ in which Goodridge is several times mentioned.