Person DS/UK/3147 Fitzjames; James (c 1812-1848); naval officer Fitzjames James c 1812-1848 naval officer Male

He joined the navy in 1825, serving on an expedition to survey the River Euphrates early in his career and then as a gunnery lieutenant in the First Opium War (1839-1842). He was originally Sir John Barrow's first choice to lead the 1845 expedition to search for the North West Passage, but his inexperience in Arctic conditions would have been held against him. Sir John Franklin was appointed instead, with Fitzjames appointed as Franklin's second in command on the ship H.M.S. Erebus and responsible for the day-to-day running of the ship; he had been given the responsibility of appointing most of the junior officers. He was still alive in April 1848, when he wrote the additional information in the margins on what is known as the Victory Point note, the last known written record from the expedition itself. His parentage is unclear; there are claims that he was the illegitimate son of the diplomat Sir James Gambier, who serevd as British Consul in Rio de Janeiro. International Standard Archival Authority Record for Corporate Bodies, Persons and Families - ISAAR(CPF) 2nd edition - ICA 2004 ISBN 2-9521932-2-3 National Council on Archives, Rules for the Construction of Personal, Place and Corporate Names, 1997 Yes staff 10/01/2019 DERBYSHIRE\71026502 28/05/2020 481e71b5-0fc2-4745-b8a0-1dad1059714b