Difference between revisions of "Albert Hastings Markham"

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Admiral Sir Albert Hastings Markham, K.C.B., F.R.G.S. (11 November, 1841 – 28 October, 1918) was a naval officer and Polar explorer of the late nineteenth century. He is perhaps best known for his pivotal rôle in the loss of H.M.S. Victoria in 1893.

Early life

Markham was born at Bagnères-de-Bigorre, Hautes Pyrénées, France, on 11 November, 1841, the fourth son of Captain John Markham RN (b. 1797) and his wife, Marianne, daughter of John Brock Wood. Clements Robert Markham (1830–1916) was his cousin, whom he much admired, and who apparently became the strongest influence in his life. Educated at home and at Eastman's Royal Naval Academy, Southsea, he entered the Royal Navy in 1856 and served eight years on the China station, fighting pirates; in 1862 he was promoted Lieutenant. He took part in the advance on Peking (Beijing) in 1860 and the suppression of the Taiping uprising in 1862–4. After serving in the Mediterranean, where he delighted in the ruins of antiquity, he spent several years on the Australian station, where he attempted to suppress the "blackbirding" quasi-slave trade from the South Sea Islands to Australia, and punished Nakapa islanders for murdering missionaries.

Arctic adventures

In 1872 he became Commander, and in 1873 (after the Admiralty refused his offers of Arctic service) he took advantage of a period of leave to sail as second mate in the whaler Arctic to Davis Strait and Baffin's Bay in order to study ice conditions; his account of the voyage was published as A Whaling Cruise to Baffin's Bay (1874). In the Arctic expedition of 1875–6, under George Strong Nares, Markham commanded H.M.S. Alert. His sledging party, in an attempt to reach the pole from winter quarters in Latitude 82°27' N on the western shore of Robeson Channel, reached Latitude 83°20'26" N, Longitude 64° W, in May, 1876. This was gained without dogs and remained the record for the northernmost point reached by explorers until it was broken by Nansen in 1895. The achievements of the expedition were marred only by an outbreak of scurvy resulting from Markham's forgetting to take lime juice for his party. In recognition of his services Markham was promoted Captain, and received a gold watch from the Royal Geographical Society. Markham accompanied Sir Henry Gore-Booth on a cruise to Novaya Zemlya in 1879, described by him in A Polar Reconnaissance (1879), and in 1886 surveyed ice conditions in Hudson Strait and Bay, for which he received the thanks of the Canadian government.

Later career

From 1879 to 1882 Markham served in the Pacific; from 1883 to 1886 he was captain of H.M.S. Vernon, the naval torpedo school at Portsmouth, and from 1886 to 1889 Commodore of the training squadron. Promoted Rear-Admiral in 1891, in 1892 he was appointed Second-in-Command of the Mediterranean Squadron under Sir George Tryon. During manoeuvres off Tripoli on 22 June, 1893 Markham's battleship, H.M.S. Camperdown, attempting an evolution signalled by Tryon, rammed the flagship H.M.S. Victoria, which sank with the loss of 358 lives, including Tryon's. The court martial exonerated Markham, since he had obeyed the orders of the Commander-in-Chief, but some officers, including Fisher, privately criticized his conduct. In 1894 Markham married Theodora, daughter of Francis T. Gervers, of Amat, Ross-shire; they had one daughter. From 1901 to 1904 he was Commander-in-Chief at the Nore; in 1906 he retired from the Navy.

Markham was an aide-de-camp to Queen Victoria, and was made a K.C.B. in 1903. During the First World War he devoted himself to the interests of the mine-sweeping service. In the latter part of his life he also wrote several books on geographical and biographical subjects, and contributed to various magazines.

Brave, with strong religious convictions, puritanical and abstemious—except in the slaughter of birds and animals—Markham neither smoked nor drank, and expressed his disapproval of such indulgence: he told his officers that cigarettes were only for effeminate weaklings. He died at his home, 19 Queen's Gate Place, London, on 28 October, 1918.

Wealth at death; £4,747 9s. 10d.: Probate; 9 January, 1919.

Bibliography