Sherard Osborn
 |
Sherard Osborn |
Sherard Osborn (
25 April 1822 –
6 May 1875), was an
English admiral and
Arctic explorer.
Born in
Madras, he was the son of an
Indian army officer, Osborn entered the navy as a first-class volunteer in 1837. In 1838, he was entrusted with the command of a
gunboat at the attack on
Kedah in the
Malay Peninsula, and was present at the reduction of
Canton in 1841 and at the capture of the batteries of
Woosung in 1842. From 1844 until 1848 he was gunnery mate and lieutenant on the flag-ship
Sir George Seymour in the
Pacific. He took a prominent part in 1849 in advocating a new search expedition for
Sir John Franklin, and in 1850 was appointed to the command of the steam-tender
Pioneer in the Arctic expedition under
Captain Austin, in the course of which he performed (1851) a remarkable sledge-journey to the western extremity of
Prince of Wales Island.
He published an account of this voyage, entitled
Stray Leaves from an Arctic Journal (1852), and was promoted to the rank of commander shortly afterwards. In the new expedition (1852-1854) under
Sir Edward Belcher he again took part as commander of the
Pioneer. In 1856 he published the journals of
Capt. Robert Le M. MacClure, giving a narrative of the discovery of the
Northwest Passage.
Early in 1855 he was called to active service in connection with the
Crimean War, and being promoted to post-rank in August of that year was appointed to the
Medusa, in which he commanded the
Sea of Azov squadron until the conclusion of the war. For these services he received the
C.B., the
Cross of the Légion d'honneur, and the
Turkish Order of the Medjidie of the fourth class.
As commander of the
Furious he took a prominent part in the operations of the
Second Opium War, and performed a piece of difficult and intricate navigation in taking his ship up the
Yangtse to
Hankow (1858). He returned to England in broken health in 1859, and at this time contributed a number of articles on naval and
Chinese topics to
Blackwood's Magazine, and wrote
The Career, Last Voyage and Fate of Sir John Franklin (1860).
In 1861 he commanded the
Donegal in the
Gulf of Mexico during the trouble there, and in 1862 undertook the command of a squadron fitted out by the Chinese government for the suppression of
piracy on the coast of China; but owing to the non-fulfilment of the condition that he should receive orders from the imperial government only, he threw up the appointment.
In 1864 he was appointed to the command of the
Royal Sovereign in order to test the turret system of ship-building, to which this vessel had been adapted. In 1865 he became agent to the
Great Indian Peninsula Railway Company, and two years later managing director of the Telegraph Construction and Maintenance Company. In 1873 he attained flag-rank.
His interest in Arctic exploration had never ceased, and in 1873 he induced
Commander Albert Markham to undertake a summer voyage for the purpose of testing the conditions of ice-navigation with the aid of steam, with the result that a new Arctic expedition, under
Sir George Nares, was determined upon. He was a member of the committee which made the preparations for this expedition, and died a few days after it had sailed.
*
Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online*
