Thomas Blanky
English sailor (1804 – 1848/51?)
Thomas Blanky (also spelled Blenky or Blenkey, c. 1804 – 1848/51?) was an English sailor and Arctic ice master who served aboard HMS Terror during the 1845 Franklin expedition. He had previously taken part in several Arctic expeditions, and joined the Franklin expedition to assist with navigation through Arctic pack ice. He disappeared with the expedition after the ships became trapped in the Canadian Arctic and is believed to have died during the expedition.
Early life
Blanky was probably born in Whitby, Yorkshire on 24 January 1804, the son of William and Margaret (or possibly Mary) Blenkey, and was baptised there the following day. His father was a labourer. He had at least seven siblings, several of whom died in childhood.
Career
Blanky spent much of his life working in the merchant navy. He first went to sea at the age of eleven, serving as an apprentice on a collier for six years. He worked various roles in the merchant navy, including two years in the Greenland fishery. As a merchant seaman he had made voyages to Alexandria, Riga, Quebec and St.
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This entry incorporates text from “Thomas Blanky” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.