John Powles Cheyne was born in 1826. He entered the Royal Navy, serving as master's assistant in the surveying ship HMS Columbia in the Bay of Fundy. He was appointed midshipman in HMS Enterprise on the British Naval Franklin Search Expedition, 1848-1849 (leader James Clark Ross), sent by the Admiralty to search for Sir John Franklin's missing Northwest Passage expedition along the shores of Lancaster Sound, Barrow Strait, Wellington Channel and Prince Regent Inlet. He returned to the Arctic as mate in HMS Resolute on the British Naval Franklin Search Expedition, 1850-1851 (leader Horatio Austin), instructed to search for Franklin's missing expedition by way of Baffin Bay and Lancaster Sound. Promoted lieutenant on his return in 1851, Cheyne joined the British Naval Franklin Search Expedition, 1852-1854 (leader Sir Edward Belcher), sailing in HMS Assistance on a voyage to the regions of Wellington Channel and Melville Island in search of Franklin. He retired from the Navy with the rank of commander in 1870. In 1880, Cheyne proposed a plan for an expedition to reach the North Pole by balloon, travelling to the United States the following year in an attempt to raise funds, but the project was later abandoned. He died in 1902.
From the guide to the John Cheyne collection, 1854, (Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge)
