Belcher (family)

Sir Edward Belcher was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Members of the Belcher family had moved to New England from England in the seventeenth century and then to Nova Scotia, where Belchers grandfather, Johnathan Belcher, became the first chief justice. In 1811, Edward Belcher and his family moved back to England, where he joined the Royal Navy the following year. Belcher gained recognition as a surveyor on a number of voyages, including the Beechey expedition in the mid 1820s, and in 1829 he was promoted to Commander. He was made a Companion of the Order of Bath in 1841 and subsequently knighted in 1843 for his success in surveying the west coast of America. From 1852 to 1854, Belcher commanded an expedition to the Arctic in search of Sir John Franklin. In 1872 he attained the rank of Admiral.