WILLIAMS polar ship

[aukepalmhof]

Marking 200 years since the discovery of Antarctica, the British Antarctic Territory is delighted to present this commemorative stamp set.

Since discovery, Antarctica has had a chequered past. Once news of these new lands was known, exploitation of its abundant seal population began almost immediately; later it was whalers that would exploit the Antarctic environment. While the animals of the Southern Ocean were devastated by those seeking profit others were drawn by the challenge of exploring the great white continent and conquering its imposing interior. During the 20th century, the focus of human activity in Antarctica shifted to a new form of exploration, as scientists began to study the continent and steps were taken to protect the Antarctic’s biodiversity. Today, as we begin to understand even more about the global importance of this near-pristine environment, we redouble our efforts to understand it and protect it for future generations.

£1.26 Discovery
19 February 1819 marked the first sighting of land south of 60° latitude. The British Master Mariner, William Smith, sighted what is known today as the South Shetland Islands. He was on board his ship WILLIAMS which is depicted in the first of this three-part stamp set. Built-in Blyth, the WILLIAMS was then a state-of-the-art sailing vessel. After having been ridiculed for his discovery by non-believers, Smith reached the Islands again and on 16 October 1819 made the first recorded landing on Antarctic territory.
This was not the end of the WILLIAMS or Smith’s role in the discovery of Antarctica. Commissioned by the Royal Navy to return to Antarctica under the command of Edward Bransfield, an Irish-born Royal Navy navigator, Bransfield sighted land on the Antarctic Peninsula on 30 January 1820. However, three days prior, on 27 January 1820, a Russian expedition led by Fabian Gottlieb van Bellingshausen sighted an ice shelf and is widely credited with being the first to see the Antarctic continent. The general consensus among Antarctic historians is that Bellingshausen saw what is known today as the Fimbul ice shelf, making this the first sighting of the continental landmass. He may well have also sighted land, but Bransfield was the first to record this clearly.
On 6 December 1821 George Powell, an English sealer commanding DOVE jointly discovered the South Orkney Islands with the American Nathaniel Palmer who was commanding JAMES MONROE.
The consequence of discovery was almost immediate exploitation. Sealers were already working around the South Americas, Falkland Islands and South Georgia and once news of an abundant population of seals was known, within just four seasons in the South Shetland Islands, almost all the fur seals had disappeared. The whaling industry arrived some years later, wreaking an equally devastating impact on the Southern Ocean.

£1.26 Exploration
The exploits of Smith and Bransfield were also the catalyst for a wave of exploration, with British expeditions led by James Weddell and James Clark Ross. The “Heroic age” of Antarctic exploration is considered to have begun in 1895. This is when a resolution advocating the exploration of Antarctica was passed at the sixth International
Geographical Congress.
The first official British exploration of the Antarctic for 60 years was in 1901. The Discovery Expedition (1901-1903) was organized by the Royal Society and Royal Geographical Society and led by Robert Falcon Scott. The main purpose of the expedition was scientific – to make magnetic surveys and carry out meteorological, oceanographic and biological research.
Another aim was to reach the South Pole, or at least to explore further south than anyone had previously managed. The core party consisted of Robert Falcon Scott, Ernest Shackleton, and Dr Edward Wilson. These are pictured in the second stamp of this set. It took until 1911 for the Norwegian Roald Amundsen to reach the South Pole, famously beating Scott.
Many other expeditions have taken place since each contributing to the records and knowledge that we have today.

£1.26 Protection
During the 1940s and 1950s, Antarctica was the subject of international tension. This was due to overlapping sovereignty claims and tensions of the Cold War. To address this, the Antarctic Treaty was signed in Washington on 1 December 1959. It preserves the Antarctic continent for peaceful and scientific use. Further Conventions and Protocols have been agreed to address the issues of Antarctic resources and protection of the Antarctic environment.
Antarctica continues to face huge challenges. The Antarctic Peninsula is one of the fastest-warming regions of the planet. Plastics and heavy metals are now being found in Antarctica in increasing volumes. In a recent paper led by the Grantham Institute, Imperial College, reveals that a temperature increase of 1.5°C in the Peninsula would see: increased rain and snow; acceleration of glacial retreat which would produce more icebergs; changing distribution of wildlife and an increasing threat from non-native species.
The Emperor Penguin – arguably the symbol of Antarctica and featured in the third stamp – is a species threatened by loss of its breeding habitat with active consideration being given to better protect this iconic Antarctic species.
All £1.26 values.
http://www.pobjoystamps.com/contents/en ... ctica.html
William Smith (c. 1790–1847) was the English captain born in Blyth, Northumberland, who discovered the South Shetland Islands, an archipelago off the Graham Land in Antarctica. His discovery was the first-ever made south of 60° south latitude, in the present Antarctic Treaty area.

Early life and Apprenticeship
Earsdon Parish Records held at Woodhorn Museum show that William, the eldest son of William and Mary Smith, was baptized at St. Cuthbert's Church on 10 October 1790. Smith had a younger brother, Thomas, and sister, Mary, and his father was a Joiner of Seaton Sluice. In the eighteenth century, boys would start their seven-year apprenticeship at sea at the age of fourteen. According to John Miers' account of the discovery, William Smith had undertaken his apprenticeship ‘in the Greenland whale-fishery’. During his life, he worked with Richard Siddins, described by historian Ida Lee as "...perhaps the greatest traveler of them all, who gave so much information concerning early Fiji, and delighted to hold mission services on board his ship in Sydney Harbour."

By 1811 he became part owner of a ship called The WILLIAMS which was then under construction by Alexander and John Davidson in Blyth, Northumberland. The vessel was completed in 1813, measuring 215 tons burden and equipped with six 6-pounder carronades.
21 January 1812 she was registered in Newcastle Upon Tyne.

Her maiden voyage was met cargo to Portugal and France, she made three voyages to Buenos Aires.
1818 On his fourth voyage to South America with a general cargo from England and India, the WILLIAMS was bound for Valparaiso via Buenos Aires then round Cape Horn. After the call at Buenos Aires for stores and freshwater, he sailed south but the wind was not favorable to round Cape Horn and he was sailing more to the south looking for a favorable wind

Discovery of Antarctica
In 1819, while sailing cargo on The WILLIAMS from Buenos Aires to Valparaíso, he sailed further south looking for a favorable wind to round Cape Horn. On 19 February 1819, he spotted the new land at 62° south latitude and 60° west longitude but did not land on it. After arriving in Valparaiso on 11 March 1819 he reported his sighting to the British naval authorities there, which did not believe his discovery, but on a subsequent trip on 16 October, he landed on the largest of the islands. He named the island King George Island and the archipelago South Shetland Islands in honour of the Shetland Islands which are to the north of Scotland. At the beginning of the following year, 1820, the WILLIAMS was chartered by the Royal Navy, and dispatched with Smith and Lieutenant Edward Bransfield on board to survey the newly discovered islands, discovering also the Antarctic Peninsula in the process.
15 April 1820 WILLIAMS returned back in Valparaiso where her Navy charter was terminated,
Captain Smith made another voyage in the area before he headed home, arriving at Portsmouth on 11 September 1821 via Rio de Janeiro and Lisbon.

Upon arrival home, Smith discovered that his fellow owners were in financial difficulties and that he was in fact bankrupted as a result.
The WILLIAMS iwas sold on the 13th June 1822 firstly to merchants in Ratcliff then to a London coal merchant. The ship was reregistered in Newcastle Upon Tyne in 1833 and was subsequently owned by a Newcastle/Jarrow shipbuilder and then a Darlington coal owner, a Bishopswearmouth and Monkwearmouth shipbuilder, a master mariner and eventually John Furness of West Hartlepool who owned and eventually had the ship broken up on the 12th December 1882.

Honours
Smith Island and Cape Smith in the South Shetland Islands, Antarctica are named after William Smith.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Smith_(mariner) https://www.blythtallship.co.uk/the-wil ... on/history
British Antarctic Territory 2019 £1.26 sg?, scott?

[john sefton]

In 1819, 28 year old Englishman William Smith was captain of a small ship of 216 tons, 25m long that he owned in partnership with three others, a brig called the Williams (so named because three of the four owners were all called William) on a merchant voyage carrying cargo from Buenos Aires on the east coast of South America to Valparaiso on the west coast. This involved rounding Cape Horn and in hope of finding more favourable winds to speed his progress, he headed further south than usual. On the 19th of February 1819, Smith sighted land but did not investigate further.
He reported this to Captain William Shirreff of the British Pacific Squadron on arrival in Valparaiso but it was dismissed as most probably ice and not land at all. On the return voyage back to the east coast in May 1819, Smith deliberately sailed to the far south to try and find this land again, he was prevented by ice and poor weather from doing so. Later that year he made a third voyage to the far south going westwards, and on October the 15th found it again, to make certain of it being land he went ashore on the 17th and claimed it for his country calling it New South Britain, later renamed the South Shetland Islands. Back at Valparaiso again he this time convinced Sherriff of his discovery.
Shirreff quickly hired the Williams and prepared a secret expedition to investigate further. He appointed Edward Bransfield an officer from his ship the Andromache, as Master and Commander of the Williams, probably his first command at the time with 29 men under him. He was to confirm Smith's findings, explore and chart the new lands, "go on a voyage of discovery towards the South Pole" and find out if the natives were friendly and willing to trade, an indication of how little was known about Antarctica at the time. The ship was fitted for a 12 month voyage
Bransfield's own account of the expedition was lost and little was known of the voyage until the 1990's when the journal of a midshipman on the Williams, Charles Poynter was found.
She sailed south past Cape Horn and into the Drake Passage, an area that was known in terms of lines of latitude as the Roaring Forties, Furious Fifties and Screaming Sixties, before long the extremes of weather had caused damage to their ship. By the 16th of January 1820 they reached and surveyed Smith's islands he had discovered and landed on just three months previously. They sailed on into unknown waters with the extra dangers of ice and cold. Through the drifting fog that lifted briefly on the 30th of January they saw before them a mountain range covered in snow and glaciers extending in both directions away from them.They called the land they had seen Trinity Land (now the Trinity Peninsula) The fog once again descended and the ship continued charting and describing what it could. On the 19th of March they headed north again arriving back in Valparaiso on the 16th of April 1820 having spent 64 days exploring the Antarctic seas.
The expedition had produced the first detailed survey of any part of Antarctica, it had collected geological and biological specimens, the first to do so in this region, it was the first to make detailed observations of the topography and meteorology of Antarctica, the first to enter what is now known as the Weddell Sea, and the first to see and chart the Antarctic mainland. High quality charts were made of over 500 miles of the Antarctic coastline.On return to Valparaiso all the records and samples of the expedition were handed over to the senior officer at the time, a Captain Searle, unfortunately all but a few charts have been lost. In a letter Bransfield said:
I beg leave to offer my services to finish it [exploration of the region] in the next Season, being of the opinion there is a great deal more to be done.”

There never was a follow up expedition and it was not until 1840 that Antarctica was first conformed to be a continent.

A monument to Edward Bransfield and other Irish Antarctic explorers erected at the entrance to the village of his birth in January 2020, 200 years after Bransfield and the crew of the Williams first sighted the Antarctic mainland.