John Torrington

Petty Officer John Shaw Torrington (1825 — 1 January 1846) was an explorer and Royal Navy stoker. He was part of an expedition to find the Northwest Passage, but died early in the trip and was buried on Beechey Island. His preserved body was exhumed in 1984, to try to determine the cause of death. It was the best preserved example of a corpse since the ancient Tollund Man which was found in the 1950s.

Torrington was a part of Sir John Franklin's final expedition to find the Northwest Passage, a sea route to Asia, via the northern edge of North America. They set off from Greenhithe, England in two ships, the HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, on 19 May 1845. The trip was expected to last about three years, so the ships were packed with provisions which included more than 136,000 pounds of flour, 3,684 gallons of high-proof alcohol and 33,000 pounds of tinned meat, soup and vegetables. However, after late July no one heard from or saw the crew again.

Many search parties were sent to look for the missing crew, but nothing significant was discovered until 1850, when the ruins of a stone hut, some food cans, and three graves were found. The graves contained the remains of Torrington, William Braine, and John Hartnell. Torrington had apparently died about seven months into the expedition, which led to further questions as to why crew members had died so early in the expedition. In 1976, the graves were rediscovered on Beechey Island, Nunavut, Canada, and the headboards (presumed to be the originals) were transferred to the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre in Yellowknife. In 1980 anthropologist Owen Beattie decided to analyze the bodies and try to solve the mystery.

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