James Walter Fairholme

James Walter Fairholme (10 January 1821 – after 24 May 1847) was a British Royal Navy officer and polar explorer who in 1845 served under Sir John Franklin on the during the Franklin expedition to discover the Northwest Passage, which ended with the loss of all 129 crewmen in mysterious circumstances. He was born in Kinnoull in Perth, Scotland in 1821, the second of five children of the Hon. Caroline Elisabeth née Forbes (born 1799) and George Fairholme (1789–1846), a land owner, banker, traveller, naturalist and scriptural geologist. His siblings included George Knight Erskine Fairholme (1822–1889) and Elizabeth Marjory Fairholme. Through his mother he was a grandson of James Ochoncar Forbes, 17th Lord Forbes. Naval career Fairholme joined the Royal Navy on 12 March 1834 aged 13 as a First-class Volunteer on board the Gannet under Captain John Balfour Maxwell, with whom, and with Commodore Sir John Strutt Peyton, of the Madagascar, he served on the West India station, part of the time as Midshipman, until despatched as second in command of a prize-slaver to the coast of Africa, where he was wrecked on 7 April 1838, and taken prisoner by the Moors. Being, however, rescued on the banks of the Senegal 16 days afterwards, while on his journey inland with the rest of his shipmates, by a party of French black native troops under a government officer, Fairholme returned to England, and in December 1839 joined the Ganges under the command of Captain Barrington Reynolds. After sharing in the bombardment of Beirut and in the early operations of the Syrian War, he became attached, towards the close of 1840, to an expedition fitting for the exploration of the Niger, whither he sailed in 1841, as Mate, on board the Albert steamer under Captain Henry Dundas Trotter, one of the three small steamers sent to explore the Niger. Having ascended that river as far as Egga, a distance of 350 miles from the sea, he returned to Cape Coast Castle in September 1841.