Presentation Signature “HMS Blossom, F.W.Beechey, Nov 28th 1853” on half sheet embossed ‘Royal Geographical Society’ upper left de BEECHEY, Frederick William

Royal Geographical Society, London, 28 November 1853. 3½ x 4½ inches, lightly mounted on part album page. HMS Blossom was an 18-gun Cormorant-class sloop-of-war. She was built in 1806 and is best known for the 1825–1828 expedition under Captain Beechey to the Pacific Ocean, during which Beechey visited Pitcairn Island. Frederick William Beechey (1796-1856), naval officer and explorer. In 1818 he served under Lieutenant (afterwards Sir) John Franklin in David Buchan's Arctic expedition, of which at a later period he published a narrative. In the following year he accompanied Lieutenant W. E. Parry in HMS Hecla. In 1825, Beechey was appointed to command the HMS Blossom. His task was to explore the Bering Strait in concert with Franklin and Parry operating from the east. The whole voyage lasted more than three years and in the course of it Beechey discovered several islands in the Pacific. In 1831 there appeared his Narrative of a Voyage to the Pacific and Berings Strait to Co-operate with the Polar Expeditions, 1825-1828. In 1854, he was made rear-admiral, and in the following year was elected president of the Royal Geographical Society.