Tauranga’s Link with Rare Polar Medal

By guest author Max Avery

Captain Thomas Sparrow Carmichael
Courtesy of Carmichael Family Collection

It is not generally known that the first Harbour Master appointed for the Port of Tauranga, Captain Thomas Sparrow Carmichael, was one of the first sailors to pass through the famed North-West Passage and was also a holder of the rare Polar Medal, awarded for Arctic discoveries.

As far as is known his medal, now held by a great-grandson of Carmichael in Auckland, is one of only two in New Zealand. The octagonal-shaped decoration measures 33 mm in diameter. The obverse has an image of a Royal Navy ship obviously trapped in ice being abandoned by its crew, and the inscription, “FOR ARCTIC DISCOVERIES 1818-1855”. The other side bears the head of Queen Victoria and the words, “VICTORIA REGINA.” Around the rim is inscribed, “T.S. Carmichael.”

Certificate of Competency as First Mate for Thomas Sparrow Carmichael, dated 6 June 1856
Masters' Certificates, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
Image courtesy of Ancestry.com

It was apparently a love of ships and the sea which caused Thomas Carmichael to become involved in the epic searches for the mystical North-West Passage, believed to be north of Alaska and linking the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Born in Limehouse, London on 5 March 1826, he early followed the sea. At the age of 17 in 1842, he reached New Zealand, crewing in the merchant ship Westminster, and continued to work his way up in the mercantile marine.

Meanwhile, the British explorer Sir John Franklin, commanding an expedition in Her Majesty’s Ships Erebus and Terror, set out in 1845 to discover the North-West Passage. The ships became trapped in Victoria Strait in 1846. Sir John died the following year, and the 105 survivors soon succumbed to starvation and scurvy.

Polar Medal awarded to T.S. Carmichael
Courtesy of Carmichael Family Collection

Thomas Carmichael joined the Royal Navy in 1850, and volunteered to serve in the expedition despatched in HMS Investigator (1850-1854) under Sir Robert McClure to search for Sir John Franklin. A crew list has Thos. S. Carmichael with the rank of A.B. (Able-bodied seaman). They found and passed through the North-West Passage (the Bering Strait) but had to shore up their ship to prevent it being crushed by ice floes and, after two dreary winters off Melville Island, the Investigator’s complement finally made it back to England in HMS Resolute.

Captain McClure (later an admiral) received a Parliamentary Award for discovering the North-West Passage – but that feat was later awarded posthumously to Sir John Franklin. Carmichael and other members of the Investigator’s complement were awarded the Polar Medal.

Thomas Sparrow Carmichael was appointed Harbour Master for the Port of Tauranga on 1 December 1864, and separately appointed Pilot for the Port of Tauranga on the same date – positions he held until late in 1868.