Joseph René Bellot
Encyclopedia
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
Arctic
Arctic
The Arctic is a region located at the northern-most part of the Earth. The Arctic consists of the Arctic Ocean and parts of Canada, Russia, Greenland, the United States, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Iceland. The Arctic region consists of a vast, ice-covered ocean, surrounded by treeless permafrost...
explorer.
Bellot was born at Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, the son of a farrier
Farrier
A farrier is a specialist in equine hoof care, including the trimming and balancing of horses' hooves and the placing of shoes on their hooves...
, but moved to Rochefort
Rochefort, Charente-Maritime
Rochefort is a commune in southwestern France, a port on the Charente estuary. It is a sub-prefecture of the Charente-Maritime department.-History:...
with his family in 1831. With the aid of the authorities of Rochefort he was enabled at the age of 15 to enter the Ecole Navale at Brest
Brest, France
Brest is a city in the Finistère department in Brittany in northwestern France. Located in a sheltered position not far from the western tip of the Breton peninsula, and the western extremity of metropolitan France, Brest is an important harbour and the second French military port after Toulon...
, in which he studied two years and earned a high reputation. He then took part in the Anglo-French expedition of 1845 to Madagascar
Madagascar
The Republic of Madagascar is an island country located in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa...
, and received the cross of the Legion of Honour for distinguished conduct. He afterwards took part in another Anglo-French expedition, that of Parana to South America, which opened the Río de la Plata
Río de la Plata
The Río de la Plata —sometimes rendered River Plate in British English and the Commonwealth, and occasionally rendered [La] Plata River in other English-speaking countries—is the river and estuary formed by the confluence of the Uruguay River and the Paraná River on the border between Argentina and...
to commerce.
In 1851 he joined the Arctic expedition under the command of Captain William Kennedy
William Kennedy (explorer)
William Kennedy was born at Cumberland House, Saskatchewan, a son of the Hudson's Bay Company Chief Factor there, Alexander Kennedy and his Cree wife, Aggathas. At thirteen, he was sent to his father’s birthplace in the Orkney Islands for his education...
in search of Sir John Franklin
John Franklin
Rear-Admiral Sir John Franklin KCH FRGS RN was a British Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer. Franklin also served as governor of Tasmania for several years. In his last expedition, he disappeared while attempting to chart and navigate a section of the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic...
. (To harden himself for the Arctic winters, Bellot is said to have allowed himself only a thin mattress and one blanket on bare boards. When he met his first Eskimo
Eskimo
Eskimos or Inuit–Yupik peoples are indigenous peoples who have traditionally inhabited the circumpolar region from eastern Siberia , across Alaska , Canada, and Greenland....
s he endeared himself to them by constructing an artificial leg for a man who was disabled).
In February 1852, Kennedy and Bellot set out from their winter quarters in Batty Bay
Batty Bay
Batty Bay is an Arctic waterway in Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. It is an arm of Prince Regent Inlet on the eastern side of Somerset Island.-History:It was an area frequented by Arctic explorers such as Sir John Franklin and Captain John Ross....
on a dog sledging journey, travelling south to Brentford Bay
Brentford Bay
Brentford Bay is an Arctic waterway in Kitikmeot Region, Nunavut, Canada. It is located in the west of the Gulf of Boothia.To the north of the bay is Somerset Island, to the west is the Murchison Promontory, to the south is the Boothia Peninsula, and to the east the bay opens into the Gulf of...
, where they discovered Bellot Strait
Bellot Strait
Bellot Strait is a passage of water in Nunavut separating Somerset Island from Murchison Promontory on the Boothia Peninsula, the northernmost part of mainland North America...
(a strait between Boothia Felix
Boothia Peninsula
Boothia Peninsula is a large peninsula in Nunavut's northern Canadian Arctic, south of Somerset Island. The northern part, Murchison Promontory, is the northernmost point of mainland Canada, and thus North America....
and Somerset Island). They then continued west to cross Prince of Wales Island
Prince of Wales Island, Nunavut
One of the larger members of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Prince of Wales Island is an Arctic island in Nunavut, Canada, lying between Victoria Island and Somerset Island and south of the Queen Elizabeth Islands....
to Ommanney Bay
Ommanney Bay
Ommanney Bay is an Arctic waterway in Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada. It is located in Parry Channel and is a large inlet on the west side of Prince of Wales Island. It was named after the Victorian Arctic explorer and Royal Navy officer Sir Erasmus Ommanney....
, returning to Batty Bay via Peel Sound
Peel Sound
Peel Sound is an uninhabited Arctic waterway in the Qikiqtaaluk, Nunavut, Canada. It is located between eastern Prince of Wales Island and northwestern Somerset Island, while Parry Channel is at the northern opening and Franklin Strait is at the southern opening.There are several named islands...
and Cape Walker
Cape Walker
Cape Walker is an ice-covered cape which forms the southeast end of Thurston Island. Named by Advisory Committee on Antarctic Names after Captain Edward K. Walker, captain of the Canisteo, a tanker in the Eastern Group of U.S. Navy Operation Highjump, 1946-47....
- a total trek of 1800 km (1,118.5 mi) (Bellot's narrative of the expedition was published posthumously in 1854).
Early in 1852 he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant, and in the same year accompanied the Franklin search expedition under Captain Edward Inglefield
Edward Augustus Inglefield
Sir Edward Augustus Inglefield was a Royal Naval officer who led one of the searches for the missing Arctic explorer John Franklin during the 1850s. In doing so, his expedition charted previously unexplored areas along the northern Canadian coastline, including Baffin Bay, Smith Sound and...
. As on the previous occasion, his intelligence, devotion to duty and courage won him wide admiration. While making a perilous journey with two comrades for the purpose of communicating with Sir Edward Belcher
Edward Belcher
Admiral Sir Edward Belcher, KCB , was a British naval officer and explorer. He was the great-grandson of Governor Jonathan Belcher. His wife, Diana Jolliffe, was the stepdaughter of Captain Peter Heywood.-Early life:...
, he suddenly disappeared in an opening between the broken masses of ice in the Wellington Channel
Wellington Channel
The Wellington Channel is a natural waterway through the central Canadian Arctic Archipelago in Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut. It runs north/south, separating Cornwallis Island and Devon Island....
(August 1853). A memorial grave was built on nearby Beechey Island
Beechey Island
Beechey Island is an island located in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago of Nunavut, Canada, in Wellington Channel. It is separated from the southwest corner of Devon Island by Barrow Strait...
. A pension was granted to his family by the emperor Napoleon III.
The young explorer was mourned widely, and £2,000 was raised after his death of which £500 went towards a granite memorial obelisk (designed by Philip Hardwick
Philip Hardwick
Philip Hardwick was an eminent English architect, particularly associated with railway stations and warehouses in London and elsewhere...
and unveiled in 1855) in his memory on the Thames
River Thames
The River Thames flows through southern England. It is the longest river entirely in England and the second longest in the United Kingdom. While it is best known because its lower reaches flow through central London, the river flows alongside several other towns and cities, including Oxford,...
riverside in front of Greenwich Hospital; a nearby Greenwich
Greenwich
Greenwich is a district of south London, England, located in the London Borough of Greenwich.Greenwich is best known for its maritime history and for giving its name to the Greenwich Meridian and Greenwich Mean Time...
street, Bellot Street SE10, also carries his name. The remainder of the money went towards supporting his sisters.
In 1935 a crater
Impact crater
In the broadest sense, the term impact crater can be applied to any depression, natural or manmade, resulting from the high velocity impact of a projectile with a larger body...
on the Moon was named Bellot
Bellot (crater)
Bellot is a small lunar impact crater that is located on the southwest edge of Mare Fecunditatis. It lies between the craters Goclenius to the northwest and Crozier to the southeast. To the southwest is Colombo, and to the west is Magelhaens....
in his honour.