CAPTAIN CROZIER 1796-1848 HMS Terror Polar Bear Monument Banbridge Co Down

Crozier's Monument always dominated the skyline and view whenever you went to shop or walk up the town. I used to climb around it as a lad with my mates. I knocked about with George or Geordie Crozier, a descendant of Captain Crozier. Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier (16 August 1796 – after 1848?) was born in Ireland at Banbridge, County Down and was a British naval officer who participated in six exploratory expeditions to the Arctic and Antarctic. He was named after Francis Rawdon, the 2nd Earl of Moira, a friend of his father. Francis Crozier was born at Avonmore House which still stands today opposite his large memorial in Church Square Banbridge. He was the eleventh of thirteen children, and the fifth son, of attorney-at-law George Crozier, Esq. Francis attended school locally in Banbridge, with his brothers William and Thomas and lived with his family in Avonmore House built in 1792. In 1845, he joined Sir John Franklin on the Northwest Passage expedition as captain of HMS Terror. After Franklin's death in June 1847, he took command of the expedition, and his fate and that of the other expedition members remained a mystery until a note from him and James Fitzjames, captain of Erebus, the other ship on the expedition, was discovered on King William Island in 1859 during an expedition led by Captain F. L. McClintock. Dated 25 April 1848, the note said that the ships, stuck in ice, had been abandoned. Nine officers, including John Franklin, and 15 crewmen had died, and the survivors were setting out on 26 April for Back's Fish River on the Canadian mainland. There were later, unverified Inuit reports that between 1852 and 1858 Crozier and one other expedition member were seen in the Baker Lake area, about 400 km (250 mi) to the south, where in 1948 Farley Mowat found "a very ancient cairn, not of normal Eskimo construction" inside which were shreds of a hardwood box with dovetail joints. McClintock and later searchers found relics, graves, and human remains of the Franklin crew on Beechey Island, King William Island, and the northern coast of the Canadian mainland, but none found any of the men alive. Crozier's Monument Location: Church Square Banbridge Date Built: 1862 Who Built it: Designed by famous Belfast Architect W.J. Barre. ( Albert Clock, Ulster Hall Statue and carvings by Joseph Robinson Kirk History: Banbridge town's most famous son was arguably Captain Crozier of North West Passage fame who was born in 1796 at a large house in the town's Church Square. After the ill fated voyage to discover the North West Passage a monument was erected in church Square Banbridge to commemorate this hero. The pedestal was designed in 1862 by W.J. Barre of Newry, ( who designed the Ulster Hall and Albert Memorial in Belfast plus multiple churches ), whilst the statue was carved by Joseph Robinson Kirk, of Dublin costing a total of £700. Belfast Telegraph 6th July 2026 The Banbridge birthplace of explorer Captain Francis Crozier, part of a doomed expedition to find a northwest passage through the Canadian Arctic in 1845, could be turned into a 12-bedroom guesthouse if planning approval is granted. Avonmore House, a listed building in Church Square, currently houses offices. The application has been lodged by Jonathan and Lynne McCabe from Dromore. Sir John Franklin’s expedition became a notorious maritime mystery after HMS Erebus and HMS Terror disappeared. It later transpired they had become trapped in ice floes in September 1846. A note left by members of the expedition on King William Island, and found in 1859, revealed Franklin died on June 11, 1847. After this date, Crozier was in charge of the 105 surviving members of the mission — all of whom were to perish. The wreck of HMS Erebus was located in 2014. The wreck of HMS Terror was discovered in 2016 in what is now known as Terror Bay, off King William Island. Further in todays Daily Mail Sailor who went missing during a polar expedition is about to be identified 170 years after he disappeared with his crew In 1993 two skulls found near to where crew of HMS Erebus died in 1845. Experts have reconstructed dead men's faces using pioneering techniques. One bears an uncanny resemblance to a photo of crewman James Reid Ice Master Reid was part of an expedition of 130 men who disappeared while searching for the fabled Northwest Passage in the icy wastes off northern Canada in 1845. Ice Master Reid, a famed whaler of his time, was part of an elite unit who set off from the UK on two naval ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. But the expedition - led by the decorated war hero John Frankin - ended in disaster when the ships became stranded in thick pack ice a year in. The crew was never seen again with reports they turned to cannibalism to try to survive after abandoning the ships and attempting to walk to the mainland.