Benjamin Leigh Smith's first Arctic expedition: Svalbard, 1871

Abstract

Despite five difficult and distinguished scientific expeditions to Svalbard and Franz Josef Land between 1871 and 1882, the British yachtsman and explorer Benjamin Leigh Smith published no detailed account of his expeditions. Best known for a dramatic shipwreck at Cape Flora in Franz Josef Land in 1881, his early work in Svalbard -particularly his first effort when he developed the Arctic voyaging and scientific techniques he would employ on his subsequent expeditions -has received scant attention. In the summer of 1871, Leigh Smith launched the first of three consecutive annual geographic and oceanographic explorations of Svalbard. His unpublished 1871 journal details his growing appreciation of and expertise in the European high Arctic; corrects misstatements in later accounts of this first effort; details his exploration of Hinlopenstretet and the discovery and naming of Brochøya, Foynøya, and 31 other points in northeast Svalbard; and offers glimpses of an explorer who kept his personality well-hidden behind pioneering oceanographic and geographic observations of Svalbard and its surrounding seas.

Sealers in the service of science

“…Samson sailed through Hinlopen but was hindered by ice at Lågøya. In August she continued north and on 10 of September she reached 81° 24’ 24” N., 18° E. The expedition failed to find Gilles Land, its stated objective, but it did yield a new chart of Nordaustlandet and it demonstrated that Svalbard extended 4 degrees of longitude further east than indicated on the old chart, although, in fairness, the old chart was largely correct once the east coast of Nordaustlandet was extended by these four degrees (Capelotti 2006). Samson returned to Tromsø on 27 September and Ulve sketched a chart of Nordaustlandet with 33 new place names.…”

Benjamin Leigh Smith's second Arctic expedition: Svalbard and Jan Mayen, 1872

“…On board his sailing schooner/research vessel Sampson, with a crew of Norwegian sailors and sealers, Leigh Smith had conducted a bathymetric survey of Vestfjorden in Svalbard, and added thirty-three new place names to the maps of Nordaustlandet while defining its eastern limits (Capelotti 2006). On board his sailing schooner/research vessel Sampson, with a crew of Norwegian sailors and sealers, Leigh Smith had conducted a bathymetric survey of Vestfjorden in Svalbard, and added thirty-three new place names to the maps of Nordaustlandet while defining its eastern limits (Capelotti 2006).…”

“…In the spring of 1872, Benjamin Leigh Smith was 44 years old and had, the previous summer, financed his first, and exemplary, private expedition to the Arctic. On board his sailing schooner/research vessel Sampson , with a crew of Norwegian sailors and sealers, Leigh Smith had conducted a bathymetric survey of Vestfjorden in Svalbard, and added thirty-three new place names to the maps of Nordaustlandet while defining its eastern limits (Capelotti 2006).…”

“…On his 1871 voyage, between 26 June and 7 July of that year, en route from Tromsø to Svalbard, Leigh Smith had occupied seven ocean stations (Capelotti 2006: 4–5; Fig. 3).…”

Benjamin Leigh Smith's third Arctic expedition: Svalbard, 1873

“…The results of Leigh Smith's first voyage to Svalbard in 1871 had appeared in two articles and two charts in Petermann's Geographische Mittheilungen the following year (Petermann 1872a(Petermann , 1872b(Petermann , 1872c(Petermann , 1872dCapelotti 2006). The much more meager results of the 1872 expedition appeared in rather disjointed fashion in a popular account by John C. Wells (Wells 1873;Capelotti 2008).…”