Between 1852 and 1854, Sir Edward Belcher commanded what would be the final expedition in search of Sir John Franklin organised by the Admiralty. Franklin’s expedition in search of the north-west passage had not been heard from since 1845 and despite several Admiralty expeditions and yet more funded by Lady Franklin, very little evidence of his fate had been uncovered. Belcher was also ordered to search for Sir Robert McClure, who had been commissioned in 1850 to sail the north-west passage from west to east aboard HMS Investigator, also in search of Franklin.

Belcher led a squadron of five ships to the Arctic: HMS Assistance, HMS Resolute, the steam tenders Pioneer and Intrepid and the store ship HMS North Star. North Star was to remain at Beechey Island to serve as a supply ship while the others continued west. After being frozen in the ice near Melville Island, the expedition split into several parties to explore overland. One party managed to rescue McClure and his men.

However, by 1854 Belcher became worried about the safety of his ships and crew and abandoned the search for Franklin. Excepting North Star, Belcher was forced to leave his ships trapped in the ice. Belcher and McClure’s expeditions only managed to return to Britain with the assistance of HMS Phoenix that was also sailing in the region.

Belcher published this account of the expedition in 1855. The same year, an American whaler discovered HMS Resolute adrift in the Davis Strait and the ship was repaired and returned to Britain as a gesture of goodwill by the United States. When it was decommissioned in 1879, the timbers were repurposed and turned into three desks. One of these, known as the Resolute desk, was presented to the American President Rutherford B Hayes by Queen Victoria in 1880. It has been well used by successive presidents and has been used as the president’s desk in the Oval Office almost continuously since 1977.