Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/McClure, Robert John Le Mesurier
McCLURE, Sir ROBERT JOHN LE MESURIER (1807–1873), vice-admiral, son of Robert McClure (d. 1806), captain in the 89th regiment, and of Jane, daughter of Archdeacon Elgee, rector of Wexford, was born at Wexford, five months after his father's death, on 28 Jan. 1807. Captain (afterwards General) John Le Mesurier [q.v.] of Alderney, an old comrade of his father, was his godfather and guardian. McClure was educated at Eton and Sandhurst, and entered the navy in 1824. He passed his examination in 1830; and in 1836–7 was mate of the Terror in her Arctic voyage under Captain (afterwards Sir) George Back [q. v.] On the return of the Terror in September 1837 McClure was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. In 1838–9 he was serving on board the Niagara, the flagship of Commodore Sandom on the Canadian lakes during the rebellion (O'Byrne, p. 1026 b); and from 1839 to 1842 in the Pilot in the West Indies. From 1842 to 1846 he had command of the Romney, receiving ship at Havana; and in December 1846 he was appointed to the coastguard, which he left in 1848 to go as first lieutenant of the Investigator with Captain Bird in the Arctic expedition of Sir James Clark Ross [q. v.] On Ross's return in the autumn of 1849 it was at once determined to send out the same two ships to renew the search for Sir John Franklin [q. v.] by way of Behring Straits. Captain Richard Collinson [q. v.] was appointed to the Enterprise as senior officer of the expedition, and McClure, who had shown himself a man of energy and resource, was promoted, 4 Nov. 1849, to the command of the Investigator.
The ships sailed from Plymouth on 20 Jan. 1850. As they passed into the Pacific on 16 April they were separated in a gale, and did not again meet. When McClure arrived off Honolulu on 1 July, he found that the Enterprise had gone on at once ahead of him, fearful of losing the short remains of the summer. Sailing for the north on 4 July, the Investigator joined the Plover in Kotzebue Sound, 29 July. The Enterprise had then got into a streak of contrary winds, and was a fortnight behind. McClure had but faint hope of meeting her at the next rendezvous, off Cape Lisburne; and on departing from Kotzebue Sound he left a letter for the admiralty, explaining the course he proposed to follow in the event of not falling in with the Enterprise. ‘After passing Cape Lisburne,’ he wrote, ‘it is my intention to keep in the open water which appears about this season of the year, to make between the American coast and the main pack, as far to the eastward as the 130th meridian, unless a favourable opening should earlier appear in the ice, which would lead me to infer that I might push more directly for Banks' Land, which I think it is of the utmost importance to thoroughly examine.’ The rest of his letter is an accurate forecast of his proceedings for the next three years. The direction followed was of course mainly determined, not by the prospects of discovering the north-west passage, but by the hopes of finding the survivors of Franklin's party.
When some thirty miles past Cape Lisburne, the Investigator fell in with the Herald, but though Captain Kellett did not think that the Enterprise had passed, and suggested that the Investigator had better wait, he would not order her to do so. McClure therefore proceeded alone, Following along the north coast of America as for as the 125th meridian, he turned to the north-east, and sailed through Prince of Wales' Strait betveien Banks' Land and Wollaston Land, till his progress was stayed by the firm ice of Merville Sound. He was compelled to turn southward, and by 10 Oct. had completed the arrangements for wintering in the strait. A journey along the coast of Banks' Land brought him to its north-eastern extremity on S6 Oct., and ascending a hill some six hundred feet high, he looked across the ice to Melville Island and to Parry's farthest' in 1820 [see Parry, Sir William Edward]. No land lay between. The north-west passage was discovered. It was not till several years afterwards that it was known that Franklin and companions had discovered another passage more than four years before.
In the summer of 1851, McClure, finding it impossible to advance into Melville Sound, retraced his steps and, endeavouring to pass round Banks' Land, made a most arduous and dangerous navigation between the heavy pack and the shore, He had hoped to be able to cross Banks' Strait to 'Parry's farthest;' but Banks' Strait was then as impassable as it has always been found; and on 23 Sept. the Investigator was forced into a bay on the northern shore of Banks' Land, which, with a sense of immediate relief, McClure named the Bay of Mercy. There the ship remained,
In April 1852 McClure with a sledge party succeeded in crossing the strait and actually arriving at Winter Harbour in Melville Island. He found a notice of McClintock having been there the previous June, but no stores, nor news of probable relief. The summer of 1852 passed and the Investigator was blocked up in the Bay of Mercy. Provisions were running short, the men were falling sick, and McClure had made his arrangements for abandoning the ship in April 1853, when on the 6th Lieutenant Bedford Pim [q. v.] of the Resolute reached them from Melville Island. McClure's first idea was to get what relief was possible from the Resolute, and remainm in the hopes of getting the Investigator free in the course of the summer. He crossed over to Melville Island to consult with Kellett; but after a medical survey of the Investigator's crew, it was Resolved that further stay was unadvisable, that the ship must be abandoned. The were therefore conveyed across the ice to the Resolute. The season, however, proved very unfavourable. The Resolute was unable to get to the eastward, and the Investigator's men thus passed a fourth winter in the ice. In April 1854 they were transferred to the North Star, and arrived in England on 28 Sept. The news of their safety and of their great discovery had been brought home by Lieutenant Cresswell in the Phœnix with Captain Inglefield in the previous October.
McClure was, as a matter of form, tried by court-martial for the loss of his ship, and most honourably acquitted. He was afterwards knighted and promoted to the rank of captain, his commission being dated back to 18 Dec. 1850. It has been said that it was dated to the day on which he actually discovered the north-west passage (Osborn, p. 367). The date was really two months later. In the session of 1855 parliament awarded a grant of 10,000l. to the officers and crew of the Investigator.
In 1856 McClure was appointed to the Esk for service on the Pacific station; in the following year he brought her to China to reinforce the squadron there, and in December commanded a battalion of the naval brigade at the capture of Canton. He was afterwards for some time senior officer in the Straits of Malacca: he was nominated a C.B. on 20 May 1859, and returned to England in 1861. He had no further service, but was promoted to be rear-admiral on 20 March 1867, and vice-admiral, on the retired list, on 29 July 1873. He died in Duke Street, St. James's, on 17 Oct. 1873, and was buried on the 25th in Kensal Green cemetery.
McClure, according to Osborn, who knew him well, 'was stern, cool and bold in all perils, severe as a disciplinarian, self-reliant, yet modest as became an officer. With a granite-like view of duty to his country and profession, he would in war have been a great leader; and it was his good fortune, during a period of profound peace, to find a field for all those valuable qualities.' He married in 1869 Constance Ada, daughter of Richard H. Tudor of Birkenhead. His portrait, by S. Pearce, is in the possession of Colonel Barrow, F.R.S.
[Dublin University Magazine, March 1854, p. 334; O'Byrne's Nav. Biog. Dict.; Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, viil. xliv. p. cxxiix; Times, 21, 22, 27 Oct. 1873; Sherard Osborn's Discovery of a North-West Passage (the edition here referred to is the 4th, 1865); Armstrong's Discovery of the North-West Passage: five years Travel and Adventure in the Arctic Regions; Cresswell's Eight Sketches of the Voyage of H.M.S. Investigator.]