Tour Scotland Video Lieutenant John Irving Gravestone Dean Cemetery Edinburgh

Tour Scotland video of the Lieutenant John Irving gravestone on ancestry visit to Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh, Scotland. Lt John Irving of HMS Terror, born 1822, died 1848 or 1849, died on King William Island as part of the Franklin Expedition searching for the Northwest Passage and whose body was found some 30 years later and brought back to Edinburgh for burial, re-interred 7th of November 1881. HMS Terror was a bomb vessel designed by Sir Henry Peake and constructed by the Royal Navy by Robert Davy, Topsham, Devon. The ship, variously listed as being of either 326 or 340 tons, carried two mortars, one 13 inch and one 10 inch. The ship took part in the Ross expedition of 1839 to 1843. Terror was outfitted with steam engines, which were ex London and Greenwich Railway steam locomotives. Rated at 25 horsepower the engine could propel the ship at 4 knots. Twelve day's supply of coal was carried. Iron plating was added to the hull for the voyage to the Arctic with Sir John Franklin in overall command of the expedition in Erebus, and Terror again under the command of Captain Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier. The expedition was ordered to gather magnetic data in the Canadian Arctic and complete a crossing of the Northwest Passage, which had already been charted from both the east and west but never entirely navigated.

This interesting surname, with variant spellings Irvine, Ervin, Urvine, Erving etc., is of Scottish territorial origin either from Irving, the name of an old parish in Dumfriesshire, or from Irvine in Strathclyde.

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