Pocket Watches of the Franklin Expedition

The Franklin expedition and the disastrous outcome of it still capture the interest of people around the world. In my master thesis, I analysed the pocket watch fragments from the National Maritime Museum collection. As Franklin and his men over a hundred years ago, I have tried to fill in the blank spots. Not the blank spots in search for the North-West passage, instead I focused on the biography of these intriguing objects and their biography gaps. 

As Igor Kopytoff wrote 1986, one must search for breaks in the career of an object. While he was interested in the change between a commodity status and its shifts, other disciplines that work with Material Culture used the metaphor of biography to see changes and transformations. At the same time, the object travelled through different hands and spaces at different times. The object itself stands for the interactions of people and their ideas, values and perception. In this blog post, I will argue that there was a change in how these objects were worn by men of the Franklin expedition and what this change may have meant for the use of the pocket watches. 

One of the most famous Testimony was given by Ogzeuckjeuwock, who must have been a boy when he found one of the camps. William Henry Gilder, an American journalist who was in search for Franklin with the Schwatka expedition, wrote:
 

 "In the boat he saw canvas and four sticks (a tent or sail), saw a number of watches, open-faced; a few were gold, but most were silver. They are all lost now. They were given to the children to play with, and have been broken up and lost. One body—the one with flesh on—had a gold chain fastened to gold ear-rings, and a gold hunting-case watch with engine-turned engraving attached to the chain, and hanging down about the waist. He said when he pulled the chain it pulled the head up by the ears. This body also had a gold ring on the ring finger of the right hand. It was taken off, and has since been lost by the children in the same way that the other things were lost. His reason for thinking that they had been eating each other was because the bones were cut with a knife or saw." (Gilder 1882, 107)

This Testimony puzzled Gilder and the other expedition members as well as the public. As an example of a contemporary reception, I will refer to a scene in AMC's The Terror, a series based on Dan Simmons novel of the Franklin expedition. In the last episode, a scene base on Ogzeuckjeuwock's Testimony shows the moral decay and insanity. Lieutenant Little, almost dead, is the last survivor, adorned with this excessive amount of jewellery. Gilder wrote: 

"His statement in reference to one of the deceased wearing a watch by a chain attached to his ears appears strange, but I give the statement as he made it. The chain may in some way have become attached to the ears, or, ridiculous as the story sounds, there may have been some eccentric person in the party who wore his watch in that way, and if such should prove to be the case, this would certainly identify him beyond doubt." (Gilder 1882, 108)

The fact that Ogzeuckjeuwock's Testimony puzzled Gilder as much as it did, and later other Franklinites, refers to a break in the object's ideal career. From an object worn in vest pockets, it became an object worn around the neck. But what does this change tell us today about the perception of the watches back then?
There could have been an eccentric person in the party, but I think there are more plausible and practical reasons to wear the pocket watch around one's neck. While members of the Franklin expedition may have worn objects from their comrades with a sentimental value, I do not think that this must have been the case for the pocket watch. After all, why not wearing it in vest pockets or a sledge, if the men just carried these things for sentimental reasons with them? Wearing it around the neck, the pocket watch will lie on the warmest and best-protected body part. On a tiring overland journey, while pulling sledges, it would have been protected against the cold and freezing to the garments. Since wool and other fibres are prone to freezing in the Arctic climate, keeping the chronometer or pocket watch close to one's body may be the only way to protect it from freezing onto the garments. But there were other advantages: It was easy to find and comparatively fast to take it out in case one wants to know the time or must wind it. While chronometers were given by the admiralty to use as navigational instruments, pocket watches could also do the job if there was no chronometer available. For me, this change in wearing means that the men must have tried to keep the watch running. Why should one do that if it was just for eccentricity or sentimental value?
While navigating through unknown territories, the men must have relied heavily on this object and had every interest in keeping it running and keeping the time as accurately possible. This makes only sense when accepting that the men used the pocket watches to find their way. It was the hope to reach help and find a way back home that made the men wear the watch around his neck.