Jackson, Frederick G. (Frederick George), 1860-1938

Frederick George Jackson was born on 6 March 1860 at Coughton, near Alcester, Warwickshire. He was educated at Denstone College and studied for a brief period at Edinburgh University. In 1887, he sailed to the Greenland Sea on a six-month voyage in the sealer and whaler Eric . In 1893, he published an outline of his proposal for an Arctic expedition using Zemlya Frantsa-Iosifa as a base in the Geographical Journal of the Royal Geographical Society. To test clothing, equipment and food in preparation for his exploring expedition during the winter of 1893, Jackson sledged overland from Ostrov Vaygach to the White Sea, later extending his journey into Lapland to study Lapp methods of travel. His narrative of this journey was published in 1895 under the title of The Great Frozen Land .

On his return, Jackson commanded the British Exploring Expedition (Jackson-Harmsworth Polar Expedition), 1894-1897, sponsored primarily by the newspaper proprietor Alfred Harmsworth. Sledging journeys were undertaken, and on 17 June 1896 near Cape Fora Jackson met Fridtjof Nansen leader of the Norwegian North Polar Expedition, 1893-1896. At the end of the expedition, Jackson had confirmed that Zemlya Frantsa-Iosifa was an archipelago and not a larger landmass as some had supposed. He had mapped in outline most of the islands not covered in the surveys of Karl Weyprecht and Julius Payer and Benjamin Leigh Smith. In recognition of his services Jackson received a knighthood of the first class of the Norwegian Royal Order of St Olaf in 1898, and was awarded the gold medal of the Paris Geographical Society in 1899. His account of the expedition was published in 1899 under the title of A Thousand Days in the Arctic .

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