3-070-807 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Interment of the remains of Lieutenant John Irving, R.N., in the Dean Cemetery, Edinburgh, 1881. 'We have given some account of the recent discovery...of some additional traces and relics of the fate of Sir John Franklin's companions, the officers and crew of the Erebus and Terror, who perished between 1847 and 1848, some time after leaving their ships, lost in the attempt to find the North-West Passage of the Arctic Regions. Among the sketches by Mr. H. W. Klutschak, one of the American expedition party, which appeared in our publication of the 1st January, was that of their finding...the grave of Lt. John Irving, an officer of H.M.S. Terror...the remains of his body [have] been brought to this country, and were to be buried at Edinburgh...The procession...was witnessed by a large number of spectators...the band of the 71st Highlanders...played...the "Dead March" in Saul...Behind the coffin walked the mourners, sixty seamen from her Majesty's ship Lord Warden...On arrival at the cemetery the coffin was taken off the gun-carriage and carried shoulder high to the grave by six seamen...The remains were inclosed in an oak coffin, and the inscription on the plate was as follows: "John Irving, Lieutenant R.N. Born 1815; died 1848-1849".' From "Illustrated London News", 1881.