Between 1839 and 1843 Ross commanded an Antarctic expedition comprising the vessels
HMS Erebus and
HMS Terror and charted much of the coastline of the Antarctic continent. Also aboard was
Joseph Dalton Hooker who had been invited along as assistant surgeon.
Erebus and
Terror were
bomb vessels - an unusual type of warship named after the mortar bombs they were designed to fire and constructed with extremely strong hulls to withstand the recoil of the mortars which were to prove of great value in thick ice.
In 1841, Ross discovered the
Ross Sea, Victoria Land, and the volcanoes
Mount Erebus and
Mount Terror, which were named for the expedition's vessels. They sailed for 250 miles along the edge of the low, flat-topped ice shelf they called the Victoria Barrier, later named "
Ross Ice Shelf" in his honour. In the following year, he attempted to penetrate south at about 55°W, and explored the eastern side of what is now known as
James Ross Island, discovering and naming
Snow Hill Island and
Seymour Island. It is noteworthy that Ross reported that
Admiralty Sound was blocked by glaciers at its southern end, providing evidence for a much greater extent for the ice-shelves in
Prince Gustav Channel and the northern
Larsen Ice Shelf.
On his return Ross was knighted, and was also nominated to the French order of the
Legion d'Honneur. In 1847 he published his account of the expedition under the title of
A Voyage of Discovery and Research to Southern and Antarctic Regions. He was elected to the
Royal Society in 1848, and in that year made his last expedition, as captain of
HMS Enterprise, in the first expedition in search of
Sir John Franklin. James was married to Lady Ann Ross whose nickname was "Thing". He died at
Aylesbury in 1862, five years after his wife.
A blue plaque marks Ross's home in Eliot Place,
Blackheath, London.
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