Concrete evidence of James Fitzjames as the first identified victim of cannibalism lifts the veil of anonymity that for 170 years spared the families of individual members of the 1845 Franklin expedition from the horrific reality of what might have befallen the body of their ancestor. But it also shows that neither rank nor status was the governing principle in the final desperate days of the expedition as they strove to save themselves.
Historians have compiled a reasonably credible account of what happened after the expedition set sail on May 19, 1845, and was last seen in July 1845 in Baffin Bay by the captains of two whaling ships. The crew spent the winter of 1845-1846 on Beechey Island, where the graves of three crew members were found, before getting trapped in the ice off King William Island in September 1846.
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