Graham Gore
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Graham Gore (c. 1809 – between 28 May 1847 and 25 April 1848) was an English officer of the Royal Navy and polar explorer who participated in two expeditions to the Arctic and a survey of the coastline of Australia aboard HMS Beagle. In 1845 he served under Sir John Franklin as First Lieutenant (the third most senior rank) on the Erebus during the Franklin expedition[1] to discover the Northwest Passage, which ended with the loss of all 129 officers and crew.
Graham Gore was born in Plymouth in Devon in about 1809, the second eldest of six children of Sarah Gilmour (1777–1857) and John Gore (1774–1853). His was a family of distinguished naval officers, particularly in the field of exploration. His father was a Royal Navy Officer who reached the rank of captain on 19 July 1821, retiring in that rank on 1 October 1846, later promoted to Retired Rear Admiral on 8 March 1852. He moved to Australia with his family in 1834 as one of the first free settlers; by that time, Graham Gore was already at sea in the naval service. Graham Gore's paternal grandfather was the British-American naval officer Captain John Gore who circumnavigated the globe four times with the Royal Navy in the 18th century and accompanied Captain James Cook in his discoveries in the Pacific Ocean.[citation needed]
Gore's family moved to Barnstaple in Devon from where his father, anxious for his son to serve in the Royal Navy, wrote a letter to the Admiralty "to enter my son Graham Gore, age 11 years, educated by myself and Mr. Bridge, Schoolmaster of Barnstaple." While there were concerns that the boy was too young[2] permission was granted for him to join his father and older brother John Gore (1807–1830) as a volunteer on board Dotterel. Graham Gore joined the ship on 27 April 1820 with the rank of Midshipman, serving on board for a year with his father, brother and Francis Crozier until Crozier was appointed to HMS Fury. The three Gores remained aboard the ship until she paid off on 20 July 1821 when it would appear that Graham Gore returned to the family home for the following year where he presumably continued his education under the guidance of his father.[citation needed]
Graham Gore was an accomplished artist and a keen shot and huntsman, both skills he was to put to good use during his naval career.[3][4]
Naval career
In 1822 with his older brother he entered the Royal Naval College in Portsmouth. He after served on HMS Albion under Captain John Acworth Ommanney. Gore saw action in October 1827 on board Albion when she was part of a combined British-French-Russian fleet under the command of Admiral Edward Codrington at the Battle of Navarino, where a Turkish-Egyptian fleet was obliterated, securing Greek independence. This was to prove to be the last ever sea battle between Nelson-era wooden sailing ships.
Having passed his examination in 1829, during 1836 to 1837 Gore served as Mate on HMS Terror under the command of Captain Sir George Back during the exploration of the Arctic at Hudson Bay[5] for which he received his first award of the Arctic Medal.[6][7] The expedition aimed to enter Repulse Bay where it would send out landing parties to ascertain whether the Boothia Peninsula was an island or a peninsula. Terror was trapped by ice near Southampton Island, and did not reach Repulse Bay. At one point, the ice forced her 12 m (39 ft) up the face of a cliff.[8] She was trapped in the ice for ten months.[5] Captain Back's diary says that Christmas Day dinner 1836 was a "haunch of reindeer shot by Mr Gore".[9] Gore gained his first commission in January 1837, when he was appointed Lieutenant.[10] In the spring of 1837 an encounter with an iceberg further damaged the ship. She nearly sank on her return journey across the Atlantic,[5] and was in a sinking condition by the time Back was able to beach the ship on the coast of Ireland on 21 September.[8][11] Such was the damage that the Terror had to be kept intact by passing chains around the hull.
Lieutenant Gore served on the Modeste in November 1837 and the Volage in January 1838, on the latter ship seeing action during the Aden Expedition in 1839; he was in action against the Bogue Forts and the Capture of Chusan in 1840 during the First Opium War.[12]
In October 1840, Gore was ordered to HMS Herald at the East India Station. Travelling to Sydney in Australia to join his ship Gore could not find the Herald so instead joined the crew of HMS Beagle, then under the command of Captain John Lort Stokes. This was the same Beagle on which Charles Darwin had made his famous researches. While in Australia Gore had the opportunity to visit his parents, sisters and brother at Lake Bathurst.[9] During its expedition with Gore among the crew the Beagle surveyed large sections of the coast of Australia.
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Gore was an accomplished artist; his painting of Burial Reach and Flinders River made during the voyage is held by the National Library of Australia. Later during the expedition Gore was injured when the gun he was using to shoot cockatoos from a gig to augment the crew's diet exploded in his hands. Captain Stokes reported that Gore, "my much-valued friend...nearly blew off his own hand whilst shooting" and ended up "stretched at his length at the bottom of the boat". Stunned but fortunately with only a minor injury to his hand, Gore could only quietly remark, "Killed the bird..." This comment Stokes described as "an expression truly characteristic of a sportsman". Stokes clearly liked Gore, later writing in his memoirs, "There was only one drawback to the pleasure I experienced on arriving in England, -- namely, that Lieut. G. Gore did not obtain his promotion, but was compelled to seek it by a second voyage to the North Pole."
In December 1843, Gore was transferred to the steam frigate HMS Cyclops on which he was "employed for particular service".[12]
