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Sir Edward Belcher (27 February 1799 – 18 March 1877) was a British naval officer, hydrographer, and explorer.
He was the great-grandson of Jonathan Belcher, who served as a colonial governor of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and New Jersey.
On 25 January 1841, Commander Belcher landed on Possession Point at the north shore Hong Kong Island, and made the first British survey of Hong Kong harbour. After the war's end in 1842 he reached home and for his services was made a Knight Bachelor in the following year. He was then engaged on , in surveying work in the East Indies, the Philippines, Port Hamilton, and other places, until 1847.
He had five ships: (Belcher), (Henry Kellett, second mate George Nares), the steam tenders Pioneer (Sherard Osborn) and Intrepid (Sir Leopold McClintock) and the depot ship (William Pullen). Belcher and one tender were to enter the Wellington Channel, between Cornwallis Island and Devon Island, where Franklin was thought to be, while Kellett was to go west to Melville Island and look for Collinson and McClure. North Star was to stay at Beechey Island as a supply base.
He left the Nore in April 1852. By early winter Assistance and Pioneer were frozen in at Northumberland Sound to the north of Wellington Channel while Resolute and Intrepid were frozen in off Melville Island – the first ships this far West since Sir William Edward Parry in 1819. A great deal of exploration was done by manhauling sledges. In April 1853 Leopold McClintock and others left Resolute on sledges and returned 105 days later, having covered and discovered Prince Patrick Island.
Another party went West and discovered Robert McClure, whose ship was frozen in at Mercy Bay. Belcher went north by sledge and found a channel at the northern tip of Devon Island, hinting that Franklin might have used it to escape to Baffin Bay. When the ice broke up that summer, he pushed his ships up Wellington Channel and became trapped again.
By February 1854, Belcher was becoming increasingly worried about the safety of his ships and men. In April he ordered Kellett to abandon his ships and return by sledge to North Star. Belcher abandoned his two ships in late July. Aided by two ships that showed up at Beechey Island ( and ), the whole party returned to England. Belcher went through a court martial, which was automatic for any captain who had lost a ship.
He was exonerated, but his sword was returned to him "without observation". He never again received an active command. Curiously Resolute broke free of the ice and drifted all the way to Davis Strait, southwest of Greenland, where it was picked up by an American Whaling ship. The American government graciously returned the ship to the United Kingdom, and when many years later the ship was Ship breaking, its timbers were used to make a desk for the American president by way of a thank you. This Resolute desk, a gift from Queen Victoria, is still used today in the Oval Office.
Despite his achievements, Belcher would later be described by a Hydrographer of the Navy as “a tyrannical martinet who made every ship he commanded a floating hell.”
A highly venomous Hydrophiinae, Hydrophis belcheri, is also named in his honour.Beolens, Bo; Watkins, Michael; Grayson, Michael (2011). The Eponym Dictionary of Reptiles. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. . (Belcher, p. 22.) Belcher collected the holotype which is housed in the Natural History Museum, London.
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