The wrong man?

Apropos Shân Ross’s article on Arctic explorer John Rae, who discovered the final link in the Northwest Passage, your readers may be interested to know that there is a bronze statue in Waterloo Place, London, of Sir John Franklin. The inscription below includes the words “Discoverer of the Northwest Passage”; this despite that neither he, nor his crew, returned to deliver news of this exciting historical event.

An Inuit chief who was shown the statue laughed at such a monstrous fiction. Perhaps it would be better if this memorial was replaced by a statue of Dr John Rae.

Archie Gilbert

Balgedie Court, Glenlomond

Perth and Kinross