Samuel Gurney Cresswell Captain Samuel Gurney Cresswell ( 25 September 1827 – 14 August 1867 ) , was a Royal Navy officer . He was technically the first naval officer to cross the entire Northwest Passage . Robert McClure was in charge of the expedition but Cresswell reached England first . Early years . Cresswell was born in King ' s Lynn , Norfolk , England in 1827 . His parents were Francis Cresswell , Esq . ( b . 1789 ) and Rachel Elizabeth Fry ( b . 1803 , London , Middlesex ) . Cresswell had two older brothers ( Frank Joseph and Addison John ) , and three that were younger ( William Edward , Gerard Oswin , and Oswald ) . He had one sister , Harriet France Elizabeth . The Cresswells circle in Norfolk included the Gurneys as well as Sir Edward Parry . Career . He joined the Navy in 1842 , and served in the seas off China where he encountered pirates . In 1846 he served on the personal staff of Rear - Admiral Sir Thomas John Cochrane in an expedition in Brunei , and was Mentioned in Despatches . A few years later , he participated in the 1848 - 49 Arctic rescue efforts for Sir John Franklin under Sir James Clark Ross . He was promoted mate on 6 April 1848 , and thanks to his good performance in the Arctic , to lieutenant on 10 September 1849 . Cresswell was appointed Second Lieutenant and ship ' s artist aboard HMS " Investigator " under Robert McClure during the Arctic expedition in search of the Northwest Passage . During this voyage , Cresswell sketched and painted several depictions of their life in the Arctic . With the " Investigator " locked in ice from September 1851 through the spring of 1853 , several men became invalid , and Cresswell was put in charge of transporting them to Captain Henry Kellett ' s ship away which Cresswell and the Inuit interpreter J . A . Miertsching accomplished with no loss of life . Kellett then sent Cresswell with additional invalid men to Beechey Island . When ice conditions finally permitted ship travel , Cresswell finally headed for England , arriving in autumn 1853 with the announcement that the Northwest Passage had finally been located . Upon his return to England , Parry declared that Cresswell , then a Lieutenant , was the first person to traverse the Northwest Passage , though in actuality , Cresswell was the first naval officer to cross the entire Northwest Passage . Cresswell ' s numerous water - colour paintings made during the Ross and McClure expeditions leave behind a pictorial record of the activities and terrain . Some of the sketches were presented to Queen Victoria . A subsequent folio volume of lithographic views of the drawings , " A Series of Eight Sketches in Colour , together with a Chart of the Route of the Voyage of H . M . S . ' Investigator ' during the Discovery of the North West Passage " , was published in London in 1854 . In the same year , he was promoted to the rank of commander on 21 October ( again for his Arctic service ) , and served in the Crimean War ' s Baltic theatre . Three years later , in command of HMS " Surprise " , he participated in the Second Opium War , receiving three further Mentions in Despatches , one being for the attack on the Taku Forts . He was also promoted to the rank of captain on 17 September 1858 for his actions on the Hai River , but due to ill - health , was unable to accept any further appointments . Personal life . Cresswell never married . He was an avid book collector . He retired in 1867 and died soon after at King ' s Lynn , age 39 .