Meneer John Leen
Sir John Barrow (1764 – 1848) was born the only child of Roger Barrow, a tanner in the village of Dragley Beck, in the parish of Ulverston, Lancashire.
He attended Town Bank Grammar School in Ulverston, leaving at age 13 to establish a Sunday school for the less fortunate. At only 16, Barrow joined a whaling expedition to Greenland. He excelled in mathematics and later taught the subject at a private school in Greenwich.
Upon returning to Britain in 1804, Barrow was appointed Second Secretary to the Admiralty. He held this position for forty years, aside from a brief period when a Whig government was in power. Barrow’s service extended into Lord Grey’s term as Prime Minister in 1830, solidifying the tradition of non-partisan senior civil servants at the Admiralty.
Barrow’s influence was significant in promoting Arctic voyages of discovery by explorers such as John Ross, William Edward Parry, James Clark Ross, and John Franklin. His legacy lives on in landmarks like the Barrow Strait in the Canadian Arctic, Point Barrow, and the city of Barrow in Alaska. He proposed Saint Helena as Napoleon Bonaparte’s new place of exile after the Battle of Waterloo.
Having received recognition from institutions like the Royal Society and the University of Edinburgh, Barrow was awarded a baronetcy by Sir Robert Peel in 1835. He was also a member of the Raleigh Club, which later became the Royal Geographical Society.
Sir John Barrow tragically met his demise during the Mutiny on the Bounty, a ship he was serving as admiral.