James Fitzjames was captain of the Erebus during Franklin’s 1845 Arctic expedition and was a key figure in 19th-century naval history. This talk explores his roles and highlights primary sources that reveal a more accurate, underexplored portrait of this remarkable officer.
Part of our Be inspired series spotlighting fascinating research on our Collections.
Please note: The views of our speakers do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the Royal Geographical Society.
Note on captions
The Society aims to provide automatically-generated captions for all event recordings. The captions appear as text at the bottom of the video which you can toggle on and off.
The accuracy of automatically-generated captions varies depending on the audio quality, any specialist language used and the speaker. They are therefore are unlikely to be 100% accurate and the Society does not edit or correct automatically-generated captions.
- Exhibition
Skin maps: semi-permeable cartography
A new exhibition of collages and reworkings of historic maps from the RGS and other archives by Steph Morris.
LondonMembers only12 Jun 2026 - 16 Aug 2026 - Exhibition
Earth Photo exhibition
The Society is pleased to showcase the winners and best in class from our international competition dedicated to engaging with still and moving image makers sharing the prescient issues affecting the climate and life on our planet.
LondonOpen to all30 Jun 2026 - 24 Jul 2026 - Webinar
Bringing the El Niño phenomenon to the classroom
Hear more about the ‘El Niño: A Phenomenon of Opportunities’ teaching resource, looking at how communities manage flooding associated with a major El Niño event.
OnlineTeachersTuesday 30 June 2026