Online Talk: Forgotten Hero – Now Remembered

By Ken Stewart

Ken Stewart MD FRCSEd FRCOG MBChB is a retired doctor and also a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, of which John Rae became a Licentiate in 1833, aged 19.

In the late 1960s Ken worked in Orkney and there first became aware of John Rae, though little seemed to be known of him at that time. Then just over six years ago, Franklin’s ship, the ‘Erebus ‘ was discovered under the ice in the Arctic and Ken’s interest was reawakened. He has since visited the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge and read through much of John Rae’s unpublished but fascinating autobiography and letters. He will talk of John Rae’s boyhood in Orkney, his medical training and work as a doctor, his Arctic expeditions and how he solved the two great remaining mysteries of the Arctic: he discovered the last link in the fabled North West Passage and was the first to bring back news of the tragic fate of the Franklin Expedition which had disappeared nine years before.

• Tickets cost £5 plus booking fee
• 20% off for JRS members
Available from https://www.citizenticket.co.uk/event/forgotten-hero-now-remembered/

Link to Zoom software:
https://zoom.us

** To be installed ahead of the event **