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Parry (1819-1820)Parry, Sir William Edward (1790-1855). Journal of a Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific: Performed in the Years 1819-20 [...]. London: J. Murray, 1821.
William Edward Parry was born in Bath, England, in 1790, the son of an eminent physician. He joined the Royal Navy in 1803 and served on board different ships in the Channel, the Baltic and in North America, before being chosen in 1817 to take part in the polar expedition led by John Ross. On their return, at the end of 1818, the two explorers engaged in a lively controversy: Ross claimed that Lancaster Strait was only a bay, while Parry maintained that it was indeed a strait which might eventually lead to a passage to the west. To settle the question, the Admiralty in 1819 put Parry in command of an expedition with the mission to explore Lancaster Strait and continue westward as far west as possible with a view to reaching Bering Strait. Parry returned to London in November 1820 after passing through Lancaster Strait and sailing to 110 longitude west, off Melville Island; for the first time European ships had managed to penetrate into the arctic archipelago. From 1821 to 1823 Parry led a new expedition that took him this time to the western end of the Fury and Hecla Strait, where he was stopped by ice floes. Nonetheless, this voyage enabled him to map a vast, previously unknown sector of the Arctic, starting at Southampton Island and extending north to Baffin Island. From 1824 to 1825 Parry commanded another expedition into the Arctic, but had to retrace his steps after losing one of his two ships in Prince Regent Inlet. Parry made his last voyage into Arctic waters in 1827, this time trying to reach the North Pole; he was stopped by ice floes at 82 degrees 45' latitude, a record that would not be broken until 1876. After his last voyage, Parry occupied various positions until his death in Elms, near Coblenz, Germany, in 1855. During his life he published various works on the exploration of the Arctic. Parry was unquestionably one of the most important Arctic explorers. Although he was never able to prove it, he had found the entrance to the Northwest Passage on the Atlantic side: Lancaster Strait. In addition, during his many winterings above the Arctic Circle he had perfected survival techniques that would benefit his successors.
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