Henry (Harry) Duncan Spens Goodsir was born on 3 November 1819 at Anstruther-Easter in Largo Parish, Fife the fourth child of Dr. John Goodsir (1782-1848) a medical practitioner, and Elizabeth Dunbar Taylor (1785-1841).
He was baptized with the name Henry Duncan Goodsir being named after his paternal uncle, Henry Duncan Goodsir (1778-1818) a military surgeon of the 82nd Regiment of Foot. Spens was apparently not listed on his baptismal record however; old family letters indicate that Spens was indeed part of the middle name of the young child. He was known by his family and friends simply as Harry. The family came from a long line of medical practitioners beginning with his paternal grandfather, also named Dr. John Goodsir (1746-1816) in Lower Largo for many years. Additionally, three of his brothers namely John (1814-1867); Robert Anstruther (1823-1895) and Archibald (1826-1849) were medical practitioners in their own right. His older brother, John would distinguish himself as a Professor of Anatomy at Edinburgh University. Harry was influenced academically by his older brother and would align himself with his circle of friends which included Charles Darwin and Robert Knox. Lying in the East Neuk of Fife is Anstruther which was a fishing port during Harry’s youth. From a young age, he began exploring the shores of the Firth of Forth along with his brother, John observing the many different species along its shores.
Harry Goodsir studied medicine at Edinburgh University and matriculated on 19 November 1839 and qualified as Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1840. During these early years, Goodsir began producing his scientific papers which were subsequently published in the New Philosophical Journal as well as the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal. He succeeded his brother as Conservator of the Surgeon’s Hall Museum in 1843 and held the position until March of 1845 when he left to join the Franklin expedition.
Two Royal Navy ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror under the command of Sir John Franklin, with Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier second in command, departed Greenhithe on 19 May 1845 in search of a Northwest Passage. Goodsir as the naturalist on board HMS Erebus began his work in earnest and appears to have impressed Captain Franklin, who made available his day cabin for him to work in, drawing and preparing his specimens that were dredged from the ocean’s depths. Captain Francis Crozier wrote of the naturalist “Goodsir in Erebus is a most diligent fellow, a perfect enthusiast in Mollusca, he seems much in his habit’s like [Sir William Jackson] Hooker never idle making perfect sketches of all he collects very quickly and in the most extraordinary rough way, he has the happy knack of engaging everyone around him in the same pursuit, he certainly is a great acquisition.” Captain James Fitzjames in his letters wrote “Mr. Goodsir is ‘canny.’ He is long and strait [straight], and walks upright on his toes, with his hands tucked in each jacket pocket. He is perfectly good-humored, very well informed on general points, in natural history learned, was a Curator of the Edinburgh Museum, appears to be about twenty-eight years of age, laughs delightfully, cannot be in a passion, is enthusiastic about all ‘ologies,’ draws the insides of microscopic animals with an imaginary-pointed pencil, catches phenomena in a bucket, looks at the thermometer and every other meter, is a pleasant companion, and an acquisition to the mess.” In his final communication in June 1845 was a paper entitled “On the anatomy of Forbesia.” The ships were last seen by Europeans in July of 1845 while crossing Baffin Bay en route to Lancaster Sound. It was at this point that a mystery enveloped the Franklin expedition as nothing was heard from the ships. Concern soon mounted in England and subsequent search expeditions soon began. In an ironic twist of fate, it was Harry’s younger brother, Robert, as Surgeon of HMS Lady Franklin in 1850, who was one of the detachment of men that discovered the graves on Beechey Island. Many years later Robert would pen his personal recollections in an Australian newspaper, The Australiasian in 1880. No other traces of the original expedition came to light until 1859, when the first written record was found by the McClintock expedition. This was a standard message form with additions that had been deposited near Victory Point in April of 1848 by Captain Crozier and Commander James Fitzjames. As the ships became locked in ice they drifted slowly southwards into the Victoria Strait for over a year and a half until on 22 April 1848 the surviving crew members, including Assistant Surgeon Harry Goodsir, abandoned the ships off the northwest of King William Island as a possible consequence of dwindling supplies and the declining health of the crew. Once landfall was made the crews headed south to the Great Fish (modern Back) River on the North American mainland.
In 1869 an American explorer, Charles Francis Hall was taken by local Inuit to a shallow grave containing the well-preserved skeletal remains and fragments of clothing. The grave was discovered near the mouth of the Peffer River on the island and after removing the remains from the grave, the expedition erected a stone cairn over the site. Ten years later when Lieutenant Frederick Schwatka of the U.S. Navy visited the site he drew the stone cairn which was still standing at the time marking the gravesite.
The remains were subsequently sent back to England where the renowned biologist Thomas Henry Huxley later identified them as Lieutenant Henry Le Vesconte. The remains were interred beneath the Franklin Memorial at Greenwich Old Royal Naval College, London in January of 1873. In 2009 renovations of the Painted Hall at the Old Royal Naval College necessitated disinterment of the purported remains of Le Vesconte and upon examination found the “well-preserved and fairly complete skeleton of a young adult male of European ancestry.” Further forensic analysis now offered the surprising possibility that the remains belonged to the expedition’s Assistant Surgeon and Naturalist, Dr. Harry Goodsir. When Dr. Simon Mays of English Heritage and colleagues examined the enamel of one of the teeth they found that the strontium-oxygen ratio suggested that the man had more than likely came from Northern Britain as Goodsir resided in Scotland and was of an appropriate age and height.
Further evidence also suggests that the gold filling in a premolar tooth could very well have been filled by Dr. Robert Nasmyth, a prominent Edinburgh dental surgeon who was a long-time friend of the family. Coincidentally, Harry’s brother, John, served as a dental apprentice to Nasmyth; however, much more research needs to be conducted before conclusive confirmation. Furthermore, while during a facial reconstruction of the skull, Dr. Mays and his colleagues found a deep groove under the lip that intriguingly resembled a daguerreotype of Goodsir; they were nevertheless unable to categorically confirm the remains were in fact those of Harry Goodsir.
The exact cause of Dr. Harry Goodsir’s death still remains shrouded in mystery. Some have suggested starvation, tuberculosis, scurvy, and lead poisoning. More recently a theory has surfaced that “the culprit may have been an infected tooth, which was evidently serious enough to leave its mark on the bone of his upper left jaw.” These are very interesting and compelling however, the fact still remains – no one really knows.
Almost one-hundred and seventy years after Harry Goodsir perished near the mouth of the Peffer River a commemorative plaque was placed by Tom Gross and his 2018 expedition members in tribute to the young Assistant Surgeon and Naturalist of the Erebus near the spot where he fell after his long and perilous death march on 4 August 2018 six-hundred and seventy feet to the northeast of the grave location. A metal canister was buried near the plaque containing a letter which was written by this author. The letter in part read “I am reassured that Dr. Goodsir was courageous in helping as many of the crew as humanly possible and at times was a beacon of hope and light in those many months of perpetual darkness of fear and desolation.”
Taken from:
“New Scientific Evidence concerning the Assistant Surgeon and Naturalist, Dr. Harry D.S. Goodsir of HMS Erebus” by Michael T. Tracy (descendant of the Goodsir family)
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See also:
Kaufman, M.H. “Harry Goodsir and the last Franklin expedition of 1845.” Journal of Medical Biography 2004; 12: 82-89
“The Explorer: A Fragment from the story of Franklin’s Fate.” The Australasian (Melbourne), 25 December 1880, p. 7
Owen, R. The Fate of Franklin. London: Hutchinson, 1978
Mays, S., et. al., “New light on the personal identification of a skeleton of a member of Sir John Franklin’s last expedition to the Arctic, 1845.” Journal of Archaeological Science (2011). Doj: 10.1016/j.jas.2011.02.022
Millar, Keith; Bowman, Adrian; Battersby, William. “The Erebus, the Terror and the North-West Passage: Did lead really poison Franklin’s lost expedition?” Significance, Royal Statistical Society, 2014
Potter, Koellner, Carney and WIlliamson, "May We Be Spared to Meet on Earth: Letters of the Lost Franklin Arctic Expedition", McGill Queen's University Press, 2022
