No Weasey explanation
QUESTION
What is the story of Weasey, the ghost of an Irish girl that supposedly pointed out the final resting place of Sir John Franklin’s ill-fated expedition to find the Northwest passage? CAPTAIN Sir John Franklin, a Royal Navy officer and experienced explorer, had served on three previous Arctic expeditions, the latter two as commanding officer.
His fourth and last, undertaken in 1845 when he was 59, was meant to traverse the last un-navigated section of the Northwest Passage. The expedition consisted of two ships, HMSs Erebus and Terror, each of which had seen Antarctic service with James Clark Ross.
The two ships became icebound in Victoria Strait near King William Island in the Canadian Arctic and the entire expedition, 129 men, including Franklin, was lost. Their fate wasn’t discovered until 1857.
The case of the lost ships became a public obsession. Speculation was rife and, it being an era of clairvoyants, sensitives and mesmerists, vivid tales of the expedition were told in pubic theatres and at private seances. In 1850, having received no word from Franklin, the Admiralty sent out a search party.
Meanwhile, one particular story gained some credence. Louisa Coppin (known to her family as ‘Weasey’), the four-year-old daughter of Captain William Coppin, a Board of Trade surveyor in Derry, died of gastric fever in 1849.
The family took her loss hard and continued to set a place for her at the dinner table. Some months after her death, her older sister Anne, along with other siblings, began to report seeing a strange blue light which would draw and write on the wall.
One night, one of the children, aged seven, told her aunt the words ‘Mr Mackay is dead’ had appeared on the wall. Mr Mackay, a banker in the town well known to the children, was found dead in the morning.
The mystery of Franklin’s fate was subject of many newspaper articles at the time and it occurred to the children to question him as to the location of the expedition.
The response was astonishing: an Arctic scene, in the form of a chart, was created in front of their eyes, along with the words ‘Erebus and Terror, Sir John Franklin, Lancaster Sound, Prince Regent Inlet, Point Victory, Victoria Channel’.
The children reported this to their father who was eventually persuaded of their sincerity. A second vision, with Captain Coppin present, produced the same results, as did a third seance in the presence of William Kennedy, whom Lady Franklin asked to investigate the plausibility of the story.
He came away convinced the story was true and it persuaded him to embark on the first relief expedition.
Inclement weather prevented Kennedy carrying out the instructions on his expedition and they weren’t followed until The Fox sailed i n 1857, under Captain Francis Leopold McClintock.
The Weasey revelations weren’t published in full until 1889 when they were published in a book.
This brought strong objections from none other than McClintock, who, in a letter to the Pall Mall Gazette, declared ‘the whole story of the vision is so ridiculous that I hesitate to mention it’, and denied that he had ever been instructed by Lady Franklin to follow its directions.
Nevertheless, it has continued to haunt the Franklin story, inspiring a novel (Liam Browne’s The Emigrant’s Farewell) as well as a scene in John Walker’s 2008 film, Passage.
Pete Welham, Swanage, Dorset.
QUESTION
On the A40 in Wales there is a village called Bwlch. Are there any other place names without a vowel? THERE are many examples of Welsh names without English vowels, but it should be noted that the Welsh alphabet has, in addition to the five vowels in English, the vowels W and Y, making a total of seven. The consonants K, Q and V don’t exist in the Welsh alphabet.
N. Thomas, Cheadle, Cheshire. THERE are many examples, mainly Welsh, but a number of English and one Scottish also if you do not consider ‘y’ a vowel. They include Blyth (Northld), Blyth (Notts), Bryn (Carm, Ches, S. Wales, Shrop and Wigan), Bryngwyn (Cardigan, Mon, Pembs, Powys), Bwlch (Brecon), Bwlchgwyn (N. Wales), Clyth (N. Scot), Cwm (S. Wales, N. Wales), Cwmystwyth (Card), Cwrt (Card), Cynwd ( N. Wales), Dryslwyn ( Carm), Glyntwymyn ( Card), Llwyn (Mid Wales), Llwyndyrys (Caern), Llynclys (N. Wales), Lydd (E. Sussex) Lymm (Ches), Lyng (Norfk, Soms), Lyth (N. Scot), Pwll (S. Wales), Rhyd (Gwyn, Powys), Rhydd (Worc), Rhyl (N. Wales), Tylch (Card), Tywyn (N. Wales, Gwyn), Wyck (Hants), Ynysbwl (S. Wales), Ysbyty Cynfyn (Card), Ysbyty Ystwyth (Card).
Cliff Crinks, Clay Cross, Derbys.
QUESTION
Which is the largest coin in the world in general global circulation? THIS is the Costa Rican 500 colones which is roughly equivalent to the U.S. dollar in value and is 33mm in diameter. It is not much bigger than the old 50p which was 30mm in diameter. The next largest is the Australian 50 cent piece at 32mm.
It could be argued that the Eisenhower (‘Ike’) dollar, issued by the US mint from 1971 to 1978, is the largest in circulation. This coin was 38.1mm in diameter.
There were two versions made: a 40 per cent silver version that weighed 25g and a copper-nickel version weighing 22.68g.
These are still legal tender, but there are not many in general use. The silver version is worth about €4 in silver alone.
Another interesting coin is the Maria Theresa silver thaler.
In 1740 Maria Teresa (1717-1780) became the only female head of the Habsburg dynasty. She was Holy Roman Empress, queen of Hungary and Bohemia, and archduchess of Austria.
In the mid-18th century, the Austrian empire’s powerful political position and geographical location resulted in high levels of trade with Mediterranean and near-Eastern countries and the coin became particularly popular with the countries of the Middle East and North-Eastern Africa, where it was used for trade with such countries as India and China, where silver was a long established measure of value.
These coins were 83 per cent silver, 39.55mm in diameter and weighed 28g. When empress Maria Theresa died in 1780, the coin remained in production purely for trade purpos- es. In the first half of the 19th century, it was produced in the Austrian mints of Kremnitz, Karlsburg, Prague, Milan and Venice, but production was subsequently restricted to Vienna.
Eric Rolley, Derby.
QUESTION
Was media mogul Lew Grade a champion dancer? Further to previous answers, with the return of the Muppets to our TV screens, I fear that the role of Lew Grade in bringing the anarchic puppets to the small screen almost 40 years ago has been forgotten.
The Muppets were famously created by a young American puppeteer Jim Henson. Characters appeared in late-night sketch shows and the revolutionary Sesame Street, which debuted on US TV in 1969.
However, US TV executives refused to commission an old-fashioned Vaudeville-style variety show as envisaged by Henson. Grade, then boss at ATV, a branch of ITV, was the only party to take serious interest.
He offered to provide financial backing for a series to run in syndication, on the condition that they would be taped in England.
The show became an international hit, running to 120 episodes over five years from 1976. Grade retained a share of the show’s substantial profits and served as producer on later Muppet movies. He died aged 91 in 1998, eight years after Jim Henson, who had died aged just 53.
The Muppets are due to return to our screens this autumn, with a documentary-style series ‘revealing’ the lives of Kermit, Miss Piggy, et al. away from the TV cameras on Sky 1.
N. Madden, Co. Louth.