1871 -
30 Sep 1881 |
Captain Edward
Franklin RN.
Edward
Franklin was born in November 1798 and entered the Navy in March 1810.
In HMS Norge he was present at the attack on New Orleans and at the
capture of Fort Bowyer. He was promoted Lieutenant in September 1825
after serving in the West Indies and a period of convalescence
following fever and rheumatism brought on by 11 continuous years of
service in the tropics.
In November 1830 he was appointed to the Coast
Blockade and while serving with the Coast Guard received a silver medal
and letter of thanks for his intrepid conduct in swimming off, in a
gale, with a rope (all boats being stoved) and saving the lives of
eight men belonging to the brig Friends, when on shore near Brighton.
From a severe cold caught in capturing a smuggler during another gale
he lost the sight of one eye, owing to which, when combined with acute
rheumatism, he was obliged to relinquish his appointment in the Coast
Guard in 1839.
He
was promoted Commander in November 1846 and was in
charge of a Division of Transports in the Black Sea in May 1854. The
Gold Medal of the Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners’ Society was
awarded to him for having risked his life in the preservation of the
crew of French and English Transports wrecked in the devastating Black
Sea Gale of November 11th – 14th 1854 – an event which shortly followed
the Battle of Inkerman, and which had as much impact on the Allied
forces as a military defeat. The storm was worst at the Balaclava
anchorage where Franklin was based, on a rocky, cliff-lined coast,
where ships were dragging anchors, cables were snapping and crews were
trying to chop down masts to stop their ships from foundering or being
driven ashore to provide easy targets for the Russians. The losses of
life (French, British and Turkish) were about 1,000 in all, around a
third of whom were British. Some 50 vessels were wrecked and destroyed,
the Marquis and the Mary Anne being lost with all hands. Only 6 of the
150 crew aboard the new screw-transport vessel Prince were saved; she
had just landed the 46th (South Devonshire) Regiment, but not the vital
winter clothing or medical supplies she was carrying beneath the
ammunition. On the morning of November 15th Franklin set off early to
obtain permission from the flagship to organise a full-scale rescue
programme. Contemporary accounts of the storm suggest that he took the
initiative at the earliest possible moment under the appalling
circumstances, and many lives were saved amongst the floating wreckage
strewn along the coast. Franklin became a Captain in July, 1857 and
served in this capacity until February 1868.
Three years later, in
1871, he was appointed Captain Superintendent at HMS Conway, a
position he held until September 1881, being promoted to Rear Admiral
on his retirement.
His four medals were:
Crimea 1854, 1 clasp Sebastopol, engraved in plain capitals (Commander Edward Franklin. R.N)
Royal National Lifeboat Institution, silver medal, George IV obverse (Lieut. Edward. Franklin. R.N. Voted 12 December. 1838.)
Shipwrecked
Fishermen and Mariners Royal Benevolent Society, gold medal, with
straight suspension bar (Commander Edward Franklin, R.N., 6th July,
1855); and Turkish Crimea, Sardinian issue, engraved in plain capitals
(Commander Edward Franklin. R.N), R.N.L.I. medal with a couple of rim
nicks, otherwise generally extremely fine and silver medals toned,
mounted for wearing.
R.N.L.I
medal: FRANKLIN, Edward, Lieutenant, R.N.H.M. Coastguard, Hove, 29
October 1838: “During stormy weather, the coal-laden brig Friends was
wrecked near Hove, Sussex, her crew taking to the rigging. Lieutenant
Franklin and two men waded into the sea, threw ropes on board and took
off the Master and seven men.”
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