Charting the Unknown: The Story of John Barrow

By Connor Kendall

 

The year is 1816 and the atlas still has gaping holes in it. Much of central Africa and both Poles lie mainly unexplored. In the Age of Reason, much of the world lies unconquered.

 

Enter Sir John Barrow, Second Secretary to the Admiral of the Royal Navy and a great believer in the might of Britain and her vast Empire. With this unwavering belief, he launches the most extensively ambitious campaign of exploration the world has ever seen up to this point. He sent teams of elite naval officers and men to trek across the most hostile places on Earth and ultimately fill in the blank spaces on the map. For 29 years, through triumph and tragedy, Barrow continued this monstrous exploratory campaign and all for the might of Britain.

 

For such an ambitious and revolutionary man, he had very humble beginnings. John Barrow was born in Dragley Beck, near the town of Ulverston in Lancashire (now modern day Cumbria), on the 19th June 1764, to Roger and Mary Barrow.

 

He was educated at the local Town Bank Grammar School, which he left at 13 to become a clerk in a Liverpool Iron Foundry. This was a position that he held for a few years, before leaving it for a job as a deckhand on a Greenland Whaler ship. This would prove to be an early sign of Barrow’s attraction to exploration, in particular the Arctic and the (at the time, undiscovered) Antarctic.

 

Clearly engrossed in the naval life, Barrow then went on to become a mathematics teacher at the Naval Academy in Greenwich. On the recommendation of the father of a former pupil of his, Barrow then took up his first widely documented job overseas and the beginning of his fifty-year career in government. He started off at the British Embassy in China, which he worked at from 1792-4. The mission was to lead an embassy to Peking and to address the Emperor on the mistreatment of British envoys, and the lack of trade between Britain and China.

 

Though the mission was later declared a diplomatic failure, it was a triumph for Barrow. While there, he gained a large amount of knowledge regarding the culture and language of the country. Upon his return to Britain, he began writing his first work of published literature: 1804’s Travels in China. It was a large success, as it was one of the earliest English language works on the geography of Peking. It was this keen exploratory nature that became a large part of Barrow’s later career.

 

Lord Macartney, whom Barrow has served under in China, was so impressed by his stellar efforts in his previous job, that, when he became governor of the Cape of Good Hope (in South Africa) in 1797, he offered Barrow another political post. It was here, in South Africa, that Barrow would bring his most ardent imperialistic beliefs to the fore, with his task of instilling peace in the warring tribal factions.

 

As you can imagine, Barrow being a great believer in the British Empire in a time before political correctness, the entries in his autobiography at this point were not particularly fair. Pretty much every native was identified as being part of Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa. In addition to this South Africa itself was described as a ‘Kaffir’ to the British settlers.

 

This meant that all native tribes, regardless of different tribal customs, beliefs, and ancestry were all considered one race of people. In this sense, they should be treated, however cruelly or kindly, in the exact same way regardless of that particular tribe’s actions. This ignorance by the British would prove costly. It was a factor that sparked off many rebellions against the Empire, including the infamous Anglo-Zulu war of 1879.

 

He also referred in his autobiography to natives as ‘savages’ and many other incredibly offensive racial slurs. Of course this sort of language today would not be acceptable, but for imperialists such as Barrow, it would be completely standard.

 

Nevertheless, Barrow fell in love with South Africa and on the 26th August 1799, married Anna Maria Trüter at Stellenbosch, near Cape Town.

 

His plans to settle and raise a family there, however, were shattered when the Dutch regained control of South Africa in 1803, and Barrow was forced to return to England. Back in England, Barrow found that his work at the Cape of Good Hope was being praised. He was soon offered the position of Second Secretary to the Admiralty, one of the highest positions of office in the Royal Navy. Now, Barrow could truly begin putting his theory into practice; launching exploration teams to go further than any other had gone in the past in order to complete the blank spaces in the map.

 

Over his 45 year period in this post, he sent teams to every corner of the globe; Australia, the River Niger in West Africa, China, Canada and, most importantly, both the South and North Poles. However, it was not just a sense of national pride and unwavering imperialistic beliefs that spurred on Barrow’s career; he had a rather more capitalistic ulterior motive.

 

Barrow convinced the Navy that it was necessary for Britain to control every major trade route known to man and therefore to monopolise every other industrial empire into submission. But it was not just trade that Barrow took an active interest in. He also considered Britain’s sea defence to be an essential aspect of ensuring Britain’s future as a major global power. In both the Napoleonic and American Independence wars, sea defence played a large part in building naval dockyards and new vessels.

But one of Barrow’s most enduring legacies is also possibly the darkest shadow over his career. In 1845, on the proposal of Barrow, John Franklin set out with a team of 24 officers and 110 men, in two ships (the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror) to chart a Northwest passage to the Arctic from Greenland.  They never returned.

 

Though rescue parties were sent out to recover Franklin and his crew, they were never found alive. This sort of disaster filled Barrow with severe guilt. He later ended all his expeditions and instead concentrated on his political work. He became a member of many important societies and even helped found the Royal Geographical Society.

 

He spent his final years writing and publishing many works such as a history of modern Arctic exploration, a well-known piece on the mutiny on the HMS Bounty, and his own autobiography. He also published a book on his travels in South Africa and his travels to China, which were highly influential during their time. He set knew standards for travel writing and rekindled public interest in exploration in general. He died on the 23rd November 1848 at New Street, Spring Gardens, London. He is buried at the Pratt Street cemetery in Camden, London.

 

His birthplace, however, is not completely ignorant to his existence. The Dragley Beck cottage where he was born has a plaque commemorating his existence, but this is not the only memorial in Ulverston. The mighty John Barrow monument, more commonly known as ‘the Hoad monument,’ stands as a testament to his legacy. Modelled on an Eddystone lighthouse (a fitting tribute to his illustrious naval career), the stone tower stands as a constant reminder to the people of Ulverston of the young Lancashire lad, who grew up to become one of the most important and influential geographers during the Age of Reason.

 

LINKS
Sir John Barrow is one of numerous explorers who set out from Britain over the centuries. One of his contemporaries, Sir Joseph Banks, is profiled in the Kent section.