Identity area
Type of entity
Family
Authorized form of name
Belcher Family
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
History
Sir Edward Belcher (1799-1877) was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Members of the Belcher family moved to New England from England in the seventeenth century and then to Nova Scotia, where Belcher’s grandfather, Johnathan Belcher, became the first chief justice. In 1811, Edward Belcher and his family moved back to England, where he joined the Royal Navy the following year. Belcher gained recognition as a surveyor on a number of voyages, including the Beechey expedition in the mid-1820s, and in 1829 he was promoted to Commander. He married Diana Jolliffe in 1830, but the marriage lasted only a few years. In 1841, in reward for his participation in the conflict leading to the ceding of Hong Kong to Great Britain, Belcher was made a Companion of the Order of Bath. He was subsequently knighted in 1843 for his success in surveying the west coast of America. From 1852 to 1854, Belcher commanded an expedition to the Arctic in search of Sir John Franklin. In 1872 he attained the rank of Admiral.