TOUCHED BY HISTORY
Jane, Lady Franklin, wife of doomed polar explorer Sir John Franklin, was intelligent, manipulative and frustrated. Auckland writer and polar historian Joanna Grochowicz, who has written three historical novels for children on Antarctica, is determined to shine a light in a novel for adults on Jane Franklin’s controversial life and unlikely contribution to Arctic exploration.
Despite the limited expectations of her sex in the early 1800s, Jane Franklin wielded considerable influence, both in the UK and in Tasmania. Her husband had a thirst for exploration – leading a failed voyage to the North Pole in 1818 and mapping North America’s vast unexplored Arctic coast in overland expeditions in 1819 and 1823, narrowly escaping death from starvation on the second journey.
He married Jane, his second wife, in 1828 and in 1837 was appointed lieutenant-governor of Van Diemen’s Land, now Tasmania. Jane, well educated, was “determined to assist in the creation of the infant nation rather than to play the traditionally passive role of governor’s With her husband, she encouraged the founding of secondary schools and what would become the first Royal Society outside Britain for the advancement of science. She worked for the rehabilitation of female prisoners and became known for philanthropic work.
