[This document is annotation to the author's transcription of Charles Dickens's "The Lost Arctic Voyagers" (1854).]
Parry is likely Sir William Edward Parry (1790-1855), who as a midshipman in the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars fought against the Danes (1808) before being posted to the arctic patrols that safeguarded the whale fishery (1810). Dickens would be alluding to Parry in his capacity as the commander of five arctic expeditions, and participant in the expedition led by Sir John Ross to reach the North Pole on sledges from Spitsbergen (1827). After receiving a knighthood in 1829, Parry served as controller of the department of navy (1837), superintendent of Haslar (1846), rear-admiral (1852), and Governor of Greenwich Naval Hospital (1853).
[Back to the text of Dickens's "The Lost Arctic Voyagers"]
Related Materials
References
Chambers Biographical Dictionary, ed. Una McGovern. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap, 2003.
Last modified 8 July 2004