Harry Lewin Lee Pennell (1882-1916) is perhaps the most unsung member of Scott’s Terra Nova expedition. Responsible for commanding the ship during the time the shore party was stationed in Antarctica, he was in charge of repairing the vessel and surveying in New Zealand during the winters, and venturing out to resupply the expedition in […]
Category: Biographical Research
G. Julian Harney & the 1857 Franklin Search
I’m currently working on a project for my NYU Digital Humanities summer fellowship to illuminate the connections and stories behind the list of subscribers to the Fox expedition of 1857. This has meant going through the publicly available list included in McClintock’s narrative of the expedition and trying to figure out as much biographical information […]
Henry Peglar’s Beer Hall
Out of pure curiosity, I transcribed this 40-page reminiscence written by a seaman (possibly a steward)* who served on HMS Wanderer 1839-44, alongside Hodgson, Peglar, and Gibson. None of them turned up until the very last page, when the anonymous author gave the following memory of Peglar. H Peglar opened a beer house in Westminster and after […]
Lt. George Hodgson, RN
A lot of my original research began from the work of the wonderful Drac on Tumblr, who was the first to track down a veritable hoard of details about Hodgson’s family back in 2019. A recap of their amazing research: Born in 1817, youngest of 7 by 5 years. One sister predeceased his birth, another […]