INGLEFIELD (Edward Augustus), Lieutenant R.N.
[HMS Phoenix and the Breadalbane at the moment when the latter was crushed and sunk. The field of ice, easing off from the Phoenix passed astern to the Breadalbane, and entering her bow, she filled and sank in less than 15 minutes, in 30 fathoms of water.
PROOF BEFORE LETTERS
No. 4 of a very scarce set of four large format chromolithograph prints after Lieut. (later Admiral) Inglefield depicting the exploits of this Franklin relief expedition of 1853, during which the Breadalbane was lost. Here the vessel is depicted in its death throes with equipment being salvaged from the wreck. The ship was found in August 1980, very well preserved, and is one of, if not the most, northerly shipwrecks.
An eye witness account by William H. Fawkner was published in the Illustrated London News and reads in part: “About ten minutes past four a.m., the ice passing the ship awoke me, and the door of my cabin from the pressure opened: I immediately hurriedly put on my clothes, and on getting up found some hands on the ice, endeavoring to save the boats, but they were instantly crushed to pieces; they little thought, when using their efforts to save the boats, that the Breadalbane was in so perilous a situation. I went forward to hail the Phoenix, for men to save the boats, and whilst doing so, the ropes by which we were secured parted, and a heavy nip took the ship making every timber in her creak, and the ship tremble all over. I looked in the main hold, and saw the beams given away; I hailed those on the ice and told them of our critical situation, they not for one moment suspecting it. I then rushed to my cabin, hauled out my portmanteau on the deck, and roared like a bull to those in their beds to jump out and save their lives. The startling effects on them might be more easily imagined than described. On reaching the deck those on the ice called out to me to jump over the side, that the ship was going over.”
