#john torrington memes

[maridemira]

John Torrington's family matters

(This is just a concept I thought of when I read the Torrington series post by entwinedmoon and this is based on the Torrington Update post and some information may not be accurate)

John Torrington was just smoking tobacco on the upper deck when William Braine approaches him and starts a conversation with him.

William Braine: Mate, how come you never told me about your family matters? Mr. Hartnell always told me that you are always bummed about it, so would you like to discuss it with me?

John Torrington: Sure, but yeah, it's kind of complicated

William Braine: How? I heard that your sister had the middle name of Mary, what's yours?

John Torrington: Well......in our early records we were listed as Shaw Torrington, Shaw is always are assumed middle name, so when my sister Esther had a middle name of Mary, it's unclear if Mary is truly her middle name or if it's just another first name or if Shaw Torrington was our shared last name.

William Braine: Oh ok, well I heard that your sister married this year, what is the reason and is that why you're bummed about it too?

John Torrington: Um......it's out of love and something hanky panky was going on before they married, so yeah, that......

William Braine: Oh, but I heard that you married a woman named Elizabeth Browning, is that true?

John Torrington starts to become agitated

John Torrington: NO! No!! That is a fanfiction! Stop passing that off as real!!

William Braine: Woah woah woah, chill out mate.......Just by the thought of it, yeah, it does seem concerning given our society expectations.

John Torrington: Well I would be concerned if our society norms are just getting very weird

[entwinedmoon]

It’s December 10th where I am and that means just one thing...

IT’S TORRINGTON DAY!!!

Today is the 196th anniversary of John Torrington’s baptism! For those who are new here, John Torrington is my favorite member of the doomed Franklin Expedition and my favorite ice mummy. We don’t know his birthday, but this is close enough. For the past few years, I’ve queued up a bunch of fun/educational/silly Torrington-related posts for this day, and this December 10th is no different. I don’t have any new research to share, unfortunately, and I’ve been too busy to make any new memes (which is perhaps for the best, lol), so I’ll be sharing some of my favorite posts from years past.

Now let’s party like it’s 1826!

[neokun25]

I made a funny animation of the teenager forcing himself to smile

And

I hope you like it XD

Me : BRUH! 😂😆

Submission from@crystaldiamond

[aqueersouthofthemasondixonline]

Hey y’all!!! SORRY THAT THIS’S 4 DAYS LATE MY LIFE DECIDED TO GO SOUTH IN PARTICULARLY IN OCTOBER BUT UH HERE ENJOY MY DRAWINGS AND THEIR RESPECTIVE DESCRIPTIONS also if y’all have any questions or whatnot feel free to share and I edited the drawings so y’all could see em better btw I combined some of the topics and I added some photos that prove these pieces r mine :D sorry that my room’s messy af

1. Daguerreotype: inspired from a scene in the book Buried In Ice that I thought was pretty iconic hdhfjhhdv (it’s supposed to be Goodsir btw)

2. Spyglass: idk the idea just passed my mind and I thought it was funny

3. Ship: my personification of the Arctic watchin the Erebus and Terror go by

4. Buttons / 10. Blush: Little hates getting flustered whenever Jopson flirts with him

5. Ring: scene from a fanfic I’m hopelessly trying to write and its Crozier btw (wRITING FANFICS R SO HARD WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME-)

6. Dress: how could I NOT draw Fitzy in a dress???? My last 2 brain cells have mandated that I have to draw him in a dress frequently

7. Love: this’s like if the Arctic had Snapchat??? And they’re just baffled the amount of queers (or at the very least homoeroticism) that managed to get on this expedition like they’re not mad,, just surprised

8. Anger / 25. Carnival: angry commander hours

9. Tears / 17. Pain: Luke Smith watching John Torrington take an L (I don’t think his death was actually that gay but here I am) (no shit I would’ve liked to have a been a rat in that room)

11. Hunger: idk it just made me think of a song from F+tM

12. Hat: Arctic chucking Sir John’s hat at his head bc who likes Sir John

13. Brotherhood: basically that scene right before a Blanky goes off to fight/marry Tuunbaq n he’s tellin Crozier like goodbye

14. Food: meme inspired

15. Shirt: also meme inspired

16. Blood / 23. Lantern: shit got fucked in sick bay I guess ope

18. Hands / 20. Whiskey / 28. Fire: somebody took an L at Carnival I guess

19. Bed Hair / 26. Cold: Silna and the Goodest of Sirs snuggling together bc 2020 needs more fluff p e r i o d

21. Eyes: also inspired from a scene in the book Buried In Ice which I low key laugh at bc Torrington gets so offended tjbtkhefkhddh

22. Fear: Jopson experiencing gay fear

24. Vanity: this thought crossed my mind one time so I drew it out

27. Epaulettes / 29. Sacrifice / 31. Scurvy: inspired from the fact that adding ‘ette’ to something makes it feminine and that made me think of the band The Regrettes so I drew out a fake album cover that’s supposed to be like if jfj was alive now and was a singer(???) and made a song with The Regrettes

30. Map: inspired from a vine that was like wHErEs thE mOnEy LEbOwskY

P.S.: I’m gonna digitalize these sometime soon

[theiceandbones]

I started this blog to join a community of people who are also interested in the same things I am- the Franklin Expedition, the Terror, Victorian naval history, memes about those subjects, etc. I had no idea how many people there were. My fascination with the Franklin Expedition goes back to when I was 8 years old and enamoured with mummification. Bog bodies. Ancient Egyptian mummies. Ice mummies. Any mummy. The way in which a human corpse can defy the tests of time is still endlessly amazing to me and if you want to talk about mummies or forensic taphonomy all day, I promise you I will be your guest. My school’s library had a few books about famous mummies and one of them happened to have a picture of a man whose name was John Torrington, and I was drawn to that mummy in particular because he didn’t look like the others. He looked as if he had recently died despite having been dead for over 150 years at the time. He was a little startling to behold but that’s what fascinated me. This is where it started.

A small while later I checked out a new book from the library, this one also had a section about ice mummies and the Franklin Expedition, but there was another man in this book whose name was John Hartnell. His expression was a lot like John Torrington’s but I distinctly remember his wide grimace and shock of black hair, “the quintessential pirate,” as Walt Kowal would describe him. “MUCH cooler than John Torrington” I said proudly to my classmates, as if they were listening. I wonder why everyone stayed away from me back then. Over the years I’d want to learn more about the failed expedition and I did. I learned a lot more. The corpses of these men are what inspired me to pursue forensic anthropology in the first place. And since today is the anniversary of John Hartnell’s death, I wanted to share a blog post by A.C. Reynard, who clearly did their research and wrote a small biography for him. I think it’s absolutely wonderful; please have a look. There are many things I’d like to be able to ask him myself. I do hope he’s found peace in death, or in another lifetime. 

[radiojamming]

HISTORY WITH DJ: Franklin Expedition Mummies

So you’re on a jolly good vacation up in the Arctic, right? Because that’s your ideal vacation and nothing makes you happier than miles and miles of ice, loose gravel, ice, snow, polar bears, more ice, and the occasional seal carcass. You’re in your fun vacation boat, happily bobbing your way over by Cape Riley in Nunavut. “Beechey Island!” says your handy-dandy map, and that sounds oh-so fun because it must have a nice beach! A misspelled but otherwise fun beach! Turns out, you’re late to the party and a couple guys have been chilling there for awhile.

“GET YOUR OWN GRAVEL PATCH, SHITLORD!” they call from beyond the grave.

The thing is, not only would 2/4 of these guys probably not hesitate to call you a shitlord because they were a couple youngin’s and memes would probably be hilarious to them but, uh

they’re still

kinda fresh.

By that, I mean 3/4 guys were buried in 1846, and as far as we know, since 1986, they still look pretty good! Or, in the phrasing of one memorable article, one in particular looked “more cold and sleepy than dead”. 

And these three-outta-four are the famous Franklin Expedition mummies. (We won’t be talking about number four. He hopped in later and intruded on their cool permafrost party.)

Now, I won’t be posting any pictures of the mummies specifically, because they can be very disturbing and I remember the first time I saw them, I about hit the ceiling because I didn’t expect it. However, I’ll be describing them in detail and putting some other pictures in. You’re free to look them up at your own discretion, though. But again, fair warning, THEY ARE DEAD AND A FEW OF THEM LOOK THE PART. They were thawed out of the ice and they certainly look like it.

So let me introduce you to the three fabulous young men hanging out underground at the moment, and some background on them.

Much credit first to Kristina Gehrmann for making these gents look so darn lively! Her art’s awesome! (Also woof, Mister Hartnellllll~)

The Beechey Island trio were all part of the infamous lost Franklin expedition launched in May of 1845. Britain sent out two now-famous ships, the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, to ply northern Canada for the Northwest Passage. Shit hit the fan awful fast, though, and there’s a reason it’s called a lost expedition. Like, uh, no one came back. People probably ate people. It was a bad time. And the three guys up there were the lucky ones.

Introducing:

JOHN SHAW TORRINGTON - AGE 20; OCCUPATION: PETTY OFFICER, LEAD STOKER (HMS TERROR)

Torrington, the younger half of the Johns, is kind of the face of the expedition, mostly because he was the first person who was exhumed. Dr. Owen Beattie, a forensic anthropologist from the University of Alberta, decided to exhume him in 1984 in an attempt to figure out what the heck went way wrong in the expedition. Now, his team knew they were probably going to find something interesting, considering the gents had been refrigerated in permafrost for a century and some change. They just didn’t know that all the guys would look as fresh as daisies in forensic-land when they pried the lids open. And Torrington was the supreme surprise.

With an expression kind of like :O, he had both eyes open (and he looked kind of ticked, like someone woke him up from a nap), blue patches on his face from the blanket that had been placed over his head (not frostbite), all of his clothes on, and a fun little piece of fabric tied around his head so he wouldn’t get the ol’ skeleton-scream face going. Aside from being tied up like a Christmas present, Torrington just looked exhausted, and more like the guys on the HMS Terror had pranked him than dying of horrible causes.

We don’t actually know much about his life, but we do know he was the lead stoker (fireman) on the HMS Terror, servicing its repurposed locomotive engine. Like the other two, he certainly had tuberculosis and pneumonia. The troubling part was, his hands weren’t very calloused, suggesting he had only worked for a short time and had been down for the count longer than he’d been on for it. Even though it had only been about seven months since they had left England, it was pretty clear Torrington had been sick for awhile already. He died on New Years’ Day at the age of 20.

Some interesting things about him:

-He was a petty officer at age 20! Go Torrington, go! -The gold-looking things around his head are wood shavings, but have often been confused for his hair. There is some light brown/blond hairs sticking out from under the fabric tying his jaw shut, but it was probably short. -He, unlike John #2 and William, had his pants on. No word back yet on why that is. -He’s the only body to not have a Bible verse on his headstone. No word back yet on that either. -We do know he was from Manchester, and had enough family to have living relatives now. (The anthropology team asked them for permission to exhume him.) -He probably smoked, judging by the state of his already whacked-out lungs. -People around the world were so fascinated by him that Iron Maiden, Margaret Atwood, Sheenagh Pugh, and a ton of others have written songs, poems, and stories about him. Most of it was owed to the fact that of the three mummies, he was the most intact and lively-looking. Some people seem to have crushes on him, too. I don’t blame them. -Torrington’s eyes were most likely light blue! They were hardly discolored and were probably very accurate to when he was alive.

WILLIAM BRAINE - AGE 32; OCCUPATION: PRIVATE, ROYAL MARINE (HMS EREBUS)

Out of all the guys in the permafrost, we probably know the least about William Braine, and he seems to have drawn the crap lot as far as health and state of his body. He was the last to be exhumed in the following 1986 expedition, after Hartnell was exhumed. But, for sake of following the picture up top, we’ll talk about him before Hartnell. 

William died, as the others did, of tuberculosis and pneumonia. Unfortunately for him, he seemed to have had to deal with it far longer than the other two. By the time he died in April of 1846, his TB had advanced enough to contort his spine, which would have been hella painful. He was extremely sick at the end, and chances are, he had been sick for most of the trip into Nunavut. The other sucky part was that his body had clearly been laid out for awhile before he was buried, and the crew seemed less prepared for him than they had been for the first two. He was kind of haphazardly shoved into his coffin, with one arm having to be tucked under his body because he was a big guy. He also, like Hartnell, had no pants on. Huh.

Some signs of him waiting on ice (pff) before being buried were that he showed more signs of decomposition than the other two. His lips had already receded (Torrington and Hartnell had dehydrated lips like most mummies), he showed discoloration, and there are signs that something had been, um, gnawing on him before he was buried. Ew. Again, there’s very few details about his life, which is kind of sad considering he was the oldest of the three. But here’s a few interesting tidbits! -He was buried with a red handkerchief over his face, and there’s been some suggestion that the handkerchief was a possession of his that he may have prized. -He had some rocking facial hair when they found him. Sweet muttonchops, Will. -Like I said, he was a big guy. There’s plenty of signs that they had some difficulty getting him into his coffin successfully. He even had a squashed nose because the lid of the coffin pressed against it all that time.  -He was buried deeper in the permafrost than John #1 and John #2, and no one knows why. He was also buried at an angle. This is strange because getting through permafrost is extremely difficult with shovels and pickaxes. Some have suggested that the crew knew someone else was going to die while they were on Beechey Island and had more time to make the last grave. -He has no descendants or relatives that we know of, and never married or had children of his own.  -Braine was right around 88 lbs. at death and was severely emaciated. Yikes. D:

And now, for the one I know the most about!

JOHN HARTNELL - AGE 25; OCCUPATION: ABLE-BODIED SEAMAN (HMS EREBUS)

Now of all the mummies buried on Beechey Island, I find John Hartnell the most interesting, and probably the most tragic. (I’m actually writing a book on him, so there’s that.)

Poor John Hartnell had it rough from childhood. His dad was a shipwright in Gillingham, Kent, and when he died, it seemed that John was the one to look after his mother and four younger siblings. Records show that at one point, he was a shoemaker before he was a sailor, and he had a Crown debt to pay off that today would be worth $13,000. It may have been back taxes or a loan, and it may have been inherited from his dead father. Either way, John eventually got coaxed to joining the Navy by his younger brother, Thomas, who had been in for awhile. The Hartnell brothers were apparently close anyway, as they were written on the 1841 census as being the same age despite being two years apart. Mathematically, on an able-bodied seaman’s pay, if the two of them served three years apiece on the Erebus, they’d be able to pay off $12,000 of the debt. So off John went, first on the HMS Volage, then on the Erebus with his younger brother in tow.

Based on the state of his grave, John Hartnell was a well-liked kind of guy. First, he was outstandingly tall for 1846, clocking in at a whopping 5′11″ 1/2 based on the admiralty records of the Volage. He had striking black hair (Thomas was a redhead) and hazel eyes, and judging by the face in the grave, he was pretty handsome to boot. He advanced quickly to becoming an able seaman, and based on the state of his shoulder bones in an x-ray, seemed to have taken to it enough to get whacked around a few times. When he died, his shipmates took extreme care with him. A pillow was sewn and stuffed with woodchips to cushion his head, a blanket was placed under his body and another was wrapped around him as a shroud, he was buried in three different shirts, and a wool watchcap was put on his head. All in all, he was very snug when they found him. Unlike William Braine, his casket was fitted to his body, so no stuffing him in was required despite how tall he was. Tape and paint made fake handles on the casket to give it a more refined appearance.

We know his little brother was with him when he died, as John’s body was clad in a shirt with ‘T.H. 1844′ sewn onto the shirttail, suggesting Thomas gave him his shirt. This may have been part of the reason why he was so cared for, but it’s also clear the crew cared about him quite a bit.

Poor John didn’t stand a chance, really. Samples taken have shown that not only did he die of tuberculosis and pneumonia like Torrington and Braine, but he also had a severe zinc deficiency. His stomach and intestinal contents were empty and he weighed under 100 lbs. at death, suggesting he was refusing to eat at the end and had severe muscle wasting. He was probably hallucinating and utterly feverish as well, and a theory poses that he, as well as the other crewmembers, may have also had lead poisoning. All of this points to a pretty gnarly end.

His body ended up being like the Christmas present of the entire exhumation project. First, when they took his hat off (to which I’d be pissed because he looked comfy as hell in there anyway), he still had all of his hair. It was pitch black and still styled and combed under his hat. He was also missing an eye and had a gouge in his right arm from an exhumation attempt in the 1850s. By the time they dug up Hartnell in 1986, his expression kind of looked like, “YEAH HI, PLEASE LEAVE ME ALONE I AM EXHAUSTED.”

Second surprise was that, after disrobing him (poor guy), he had already been autopsied before. Not only that, but the Y incision was reversed, all his organs were upside-down, and his ribs and sternum were flip-flopped too. This made the radiographers hella confused, and at first they thought it may have been the doing of the surgeon on board the Erebus. Turns out, it was probably the wonky exhumation attempt that stole his eye. In short, they hecked up Hartnell bad, and he deserved better. But his body told Dr. Beattie and his team plenty, and they snugged him right back up and reburied him on June 21st, 1986.

Fun facts, because I know way too much about this guy:

-His eyes were hazel, according to his records on the Volage. However, on his body, Dr. Beattie thought they looked more green. -He had impacted first molars in his jaw, but otherwise, had all of his teeth. Weird, considering able-bodied seaman got whacked in the face/head more than anyone else. -The 1850s exhumation also stole the nameplate off his casket as a souvenir. Like they didn’t do enough to him. -Because of his Crown debt, the Hartnells back in England weren’t given his Arctic service medal after his death. It wasn’t given to anyone until 1986. -There’s signs that not only did the crew dress him up nicely (still no pants, tho), but his hair had been combed and someone had cleaned his nails. His hands were also put in a funerary position, unlike Torrington and Braine.  -Brian Spenceley, a physics professor from Lakehead, went with Dr. Beattie on the expedition, as Brian was a living relative of Hartnell and a descendant of his younger brother, Charles. One thing he immediately recognized was the ‘Hartnell nose’. If you do look up pictures of him, you’ll know it immediately. -Hartnell also had some facial hair along his jaw, but was otherwise pretty clean-shaven. -He was so well-preserved otherwise (even though there’s evidence that there was a little bit of delay burying him) that he had full flexion in his joints and tendons like an unconscious living person. Doctors and scientists had no trouble undressing him or turning his head and moving his arms for scans and examination. -He seems to be more of the face of the expedition than Torrington. If you look up the mummies, chances are that Hartnell is the first person you see. He’s recognizable for his nose, his black hair, and his extremely ‘I’m so done’ expression. -No kids, no marriages. His brother was the same. :( (I woulda married him in a heartbeat.)

Now there’s about a million theories as to what happened to all of them. Lead-poisoning is a chief one of Beattie’s due to the canned food onboard being soldered with lead. Really, it just seems like the Franklin expedition was a Murphy’s Law situation.

[entwinedmoon]

John Torrington walks into the club like, “What up? I got a big v a r i e t y  o f  l u n g   a i l m e n t s.”

[entwinedmoon]

TORRINGTON DAY 2021!!!

It’s December 10th where I live, so it’s TORRINGTON DAY!

For those who are new, today is the day John Torrington, my favorite member of the doomed Franklin Expedition and my favorite ice mummy, was baptized in 1826. We don’t know his birthday, so this is the closest we can get for now.

For the past two years I’ve shared blog posts about the research I’ve been doing (and by research I mean playing around on Ancestry and other databases for fun--no one is paying me to research my cold boy), but this year I haven’t had a chance to do any research or put together anything new for this day. But I still want to celebrate (it’s the 195th anniversary, y’all!). So instead I will be reblogging some of the posts from the past two John Torrington Baptism Parties. I will be sharing art, music, poetry, and completely ridiculous memes. You can also read all my previous research posts about Torrington here.

NOW LET’S PARTY!

[entwinedmoon]

GET READY TO PARTY LIKE IT’S 1826!

It’s December 10 (where I am, at least), which means it’s TORRINGTON TIME! Today is the 194th anniversary of John Torrington’s baptism, and since we don’t know his actual birthday, this is the closest we can get.

I threw him a little tumblr party last year, and I’ll be reblogging a few of the more popular posts from the last party, and I’ll be posting some new content as well. There will be art, music, and completely ridiculous memes! There might be a few little surprises, too!

Happy Baptism Day, John Torrington!

[entwinedmoon]

It’s December 10. You know what that means?

IT’S JOHN TORRINGTON’S BAPTISM DAY!

Get ready for a day full of music, art, and memes!

Happy Baptism Day, Torrington!