To-day the most interesting fact connected with the Phipps expedition is that Nelson, the hero of Trafalgar and of the Battle of the Nile, then a lad of fifteen, was a member of the party.

Thus the boldest and strongest spirits of the most adventurous and hardy profession of those days sought employment in the contest against the frozen wilderness of the north.
The first half of the 19th century witnessed many brave ships and gallant men sent to the arctic regions.

While most of these expeditions were not directed against the Pole so much as sent in an endeavor to find a route to the Indies round North America--the Northwest Passage--and around Asia--the Northeast Passage--many of them are intimately interwoven with the conquest of the Pole, and were a necessary part of its ultimate discovery.

England hurled expedition after expedition, manned by the best talent and energy of her navy, against the ice which seemingly blocked every channel to her ambitions for an arctic route to the Orient.
In 1819 Parry penetrated many intricate passages and overcame one-half of the distance between Greenland and Bering Sea, winning a prize of L5000, offered by Parliament to the first navigator to pass the 110th meridian west of Greenwich.

He was also the first navigator to pass directly north of the magnetic North Pole, which he located approximately, and thus the first to report the strange experience of seeing the compass needle pointing due south.
So great was Parry's success that the British government sent him out in command of two other expeditions in search of the Northwest Passage.