‘The Admiralty has been keeping its pictures’: photography and the British Arctic Expedition, 1875–1876

When the British Arctic Expedition of 1875 under command of George Nares left in search of the North Pole, they brought with them the most up-to-date photographic equipment available to the British Admiralty. Two crew members received instruction in photography from the astronomer, engineer and photographer, William Abney at Chatham, and Abney also sourced the wet and dry-plate equipment provided for the expedition. The expedition was unsuccessful in its ambitious geographical goal of reaching the North Pole, but it returned in 1876 with over 100 photographs. However, the Admiralty did not immediately release the photographs, which was a decision that was broadly criticized in the British periodical press. This was the first time an expedition had successfully returned with photographs taken in the high Arctic, so why did the Admiralty withhold the photographs? In this article, I use examples from the Illustrated London News and Nares’ official travel account Narrative of A Voyage to the Polar Sea (1878) to examine the use of photography in constructing specific ideals of exploration in the context of the British Arctic Exploration of 1875. I show that the use of photography in the Arctic had been an experiment, both in terms of using new technologies while travelling in the high north, and in incorporating this new medium into the visual archives and narrative storytelling of expeditions. The use of different forms of illustrations also speaks the construction of visual authority and narratorial control in the context of imperial expansionism in the North.