Great Arctic explorer to be finally honoured after having career discredited for telling truth about British voyagers' cannibalism
- John Rae was sent to find crew of Sir John Franklin lost in Arctic
- Discovered that they had reported to cannibalism and reported back
- But had reputation trashed and story discredited by Charles Dickens
- To be honoured with plaque at Westminster Abbey next week
A painting by Stephen Pearce of Dr John Rae, who is to be honoured with a plaque at Westminster Abbey
One
of Britain's greatest Arctic explorers, whose reputation was trashed
when he reported cannibalism within a lost British crew, will be
honoured with a plaque at Westminster Abbey.
Dr
John Rae was sent to the Arctic to find out what had happened to Sir
John Franklin and his crew - who went missing in 1846 - and made a
discovery so shocking it was refused by the establishment.
Inuit
tribesmen told Dr Rae that Franklin's men has starved to death and
resorted to eating each other after their ships got trapped in the ice.
After
three journeys across the Arctic, Dr Rae reported back, saying that the
men had 'been driven to the last dread alternative as a means of
supporting life'.
His
unfavourable findings were widely criticised and led to him being
completely discredited - Charles Dickens wrote a two-part essay
theorising that it had actually been the Inuits who killed Franklin's
men - and his version became the accepted story.
In
his essays, Dickens wrote about the 'firmness, fortitude and courage'
of the crew, compared with the Inuits - a 'gross handful of uncivilised
people, with a domesticity of blood and blubber', The Times reports.
The
successful campaign to sully Dr Rae's account was started by Franklin's
widow, and he never recovered from it - he was the only Victorian
explorer who was not knighted.
