Richard Collinson Sir Richard Collinson ( 7 November 1811 – 13 September 1883 ) was an English naval officer and explorer of the Northwest Passage . He was born in Gateshead , Tyne and Wear , England , then part of County Durham . He joined the Royal Navy in 1823 at age twelve and rose in the ranks , becoming a lieutenant in 1835 , commander in 1841 , and captain in 1842 . The three expeditions sent in 1848 to locate Sir John Franklin all failed . In 1850 Collinson was instructed to look for him by sailing through the Bering Strait while Horatio Austin and others would use the normal route through the Parry Channel . He was given the HMS " Enterprise " and was to be accompanied by Commander Robert McClure the HMS " Investigator " . They left Plymouth in January 1850 . After becoming separated off the coast of Chile the two ships became independent . ( McClure got to the Bering Strait first and was frozen in on Banks Island . When he was rescued and taken to England he became the first person to cross the Northwest Passage ) . When Collinson reached the Bering Strait and learned that McClure was ahead of him he turned back and spent the winter in Hong Kong . He returned to Bering Strait in mid - July 1851 and sailed east along the coast . On 29 August he was off the coast of Banks Island and saw an open strait tending northeast . This was the Prince of Wales Strait . He entered the strait thinking that he might have found the northwest passage but after a while he saw a flagpole on a hill . Under the flagstaff was a message saying that McClure had wintered here the previous year . Collinson pushed on a little beyond McClure ' s maximum before he was blocked by ice . Returning south he found another message saying that McClure had passed that point only 18 days before but it did not mention McClure ' s plan to circumnavigate the island . He went a little further southeast and chose winter quarters at Minto Inlet . Here he found another message left by one of McClure ' s sledging parties . In the spring of 1852 he sent a sledge party north to Melville Island where they found tracks from an unknown traveler ( these were McClure ' s men who were frozen in to the west . ) On 5 August he was freed from the ice and went along the south coast of Victoria Island into the Coronation Gulf , the easternmost point reached by a ship from the Bering Strait . He wintered at Cambridge Bay on the southeast coast of Victoria Island . In the spring of 1853 he led a sledge party to the easternmost point on the island ( Point Pelly ) . A little later some Inuit drew them a map of the area to the east . On the map was a ship . If Collinson had not disregarded this , or had had a proper interpreter , he might have sent a sledge party east and found some of Franklin ' s men , if they were still alive . He returned though Bering Strait and around the Cape of Good Hope . At the cape ( January 1855 ) he learned of Rae ' s report that Franklin had been lost just to the east of where he had turned back . Collinson ' s reputation is lower than it perhaps should be . The problems are that McClure was always there first , his constant quarrels with his officers and bad luck . Roald Amundsen praised him for navigating a large ship through waters that were difficult for Amundsen ' s small ship . His account of the voyage was published six years after his death by his brother , General Thomas Collinson . He was awarded a Gold Medal by the Royal Geographical Society , knighted in 1875 , and made an admiral on the retired list in the same year . In 1862 he became an " elder brother " of Trinity House and in 1875 became Deputy Master .