# A Naval Biographical Dictionary/Ross, James Clark

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​ROSS, Kt., D.C.L., F.R.S., F.L.S., F.R.A.S., &c. (Captain, 1834.)
Sir James Clark Ross, born 15 April, 1800, is son of Geo. Ross, Esq., of Chatham Place, London, and Balsarroch, co. Wigton; and nephew of Capt. Sir John Ross, R.N., Kt., C.B.
This officer entered the Navy, 5 April, 1812, as Fst.-cl. Vol., on board the Briseis 10, commanded by his uncle Capt. John Ross, under whom he was employed as Midshipman and Master’s Mate in the same vessel and in the Actaeon 16 and Driver 18, in the Baltic, White Sea, and Channel, and on the west coast of Scotland, until Dec. 1817. On 16 Jan. 1818, a few weeks after Capt. Chas. Hope Reid had succeeded to the command of the Driver, he was again placed under the orders of Capt. John Ross as Admiralty-Midshipman on board the Isabella hired sloop; and in the course of the same year he accompanied him in his first expedition for the ​discovery of a north-west passage. In Dec. 1818, having returned to England, he joined the Severn 40, Capt. Wm. M‘Culloch, lying in the Downs. Between Jan. 1819 and Oct. 1825 he was engaged, under the present Sir Wm. Edw. Parry (to whose memoir refer), in three other voyages to the Arctic regions. During the first two he was attached to the Hecla and Fury bombs, commanded in person by Capt. Parry; and while absent on the second he was promoted, 26 Dec. 1822, to the rank of Lieutenant. On the last occasion he was again in the Fury, with Capt. Henry Parkyns Hoffner, and was in that vessel wrecked in lat. 72° 42' 30", long. 91° 50' 5". In 1827 Mr. Ross, as First of the Hecla, was the companion once more of Capt. Parry in his attempt to reach the Pole from the northern shores of Spitzbergen, by travelling with sledge-boats over the ice. On his return to England he was presented with a Commander’s commission dated 8 Nov. 1827. He was next, from 1829 until 1833, employed under his uncle in the Polar expedition equipped by Sir Felix Booth. His eminent services during that period (he had the honour of planting the British flag on the North Magnetic Pole) were rewarded (after he had officiated for a year as Supernumerary-Commander of the Victory 104, flag-ship of Sir Thos. Williams at Portsmouth) by his elevation to Post-rank, 28 Oct. 1834. In Dec. 1835 Capt. Ross was invested with the command (which he retained about 12 months) of the Cove, a sixth-rate, for the purpose of proceeding in quest of, and of conveying relief to, some missing whalers who had been frozen up in Baffin Bay. He was subsequently, until 1838, employed in making a magnetic survey of Great Britain and Ireland, by order of the Admiralty; and on 8 April, 1839, he was appointed to the command, in the Erebus bomb, of an expedition (consisting of that vessel and of the Terror) which, in the ensuing Sept., sailed from England for the purposes of magnetic research and geographical discovery in the Antarctic seas. During an absence of four years three persevering attempts were made to penetrate the icy limits of the South Pole. In the course of their cruizes the ships discovered a vast continent, fringed with a barrier of ice 150 feet in height; they nevertheless adventurously persisted, and, in spite of many perils, succeeded in arriving within 157 miles of the Pole (lat. 78° 10'). Among other discoveries they met with an active volcano in lat. 77° 32' south, and long. 167° east – seated amidst eternal snows, and gaining an altitude of 12,400 feet. To this was imparted the name of “Mount Erebus,” as had been to the continent that of “Victoria Land.” Valuable contributions during the voyage were made to botany, zoology, and geology; and meteorology and terrestrial magnetism derived much benefit from the assiduity bestowed on them. The expedition returned in Sept. 1843; and as a proof of the skill, humanity, and attention with which it had been conducted, we must add that in the whole of the four years it had only lost 3 men by accident and 1 by illness. A short time after his arrival in England Capt. Ross received the honour of Knighthood; and on 3 1 Jan. 1848 he was appointed to the Enterprise discovery-ship, now in search of the expedition under Sir John Franklin.
Sir Jas. Clark Ross was elected a Fellow of the Linnaean Society in 1823, and a Fellow of the Royal Society 11 Dec. 1828. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical and Royal Geographical Societies of London and of other places in England, a Member of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Copenhagen, and a Corresponding Member of the Geographical Society of Paris. In 1833 he received the thanks of the common council of London, and a piece of plate from the Subscribers to the Land Arctic Expedition; in 1841 the “Founder’s Gold Medal” from the Geographical Society of London; in 1842 the Gold Medal of the Geographical Society of Paris; and in 1844 the honorary degree of D.C.L. from the University of Oxford. He married, 18 Oct. 1843, Ann, eldest daughter of Thos. Coulman, Esq., of Whitgift Hall, and niece of R. J. Coulman, Esq., of Wadworth Hall.
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