Spilsby, the birthplace of Sir John Franklin and Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Spilsby is a town in the English county of Lincolnshire, and has been a country market town for more than seven hundred years. Having such a long history means that there will inevitably be a number of notable residents, and this is certainly the case.

The Arctic explorer Sir John Franklin was born in the town of Spilsby in the year 1786 and went on to explore the Arctic coastline of North America and put it on the map. He also served as the Governor of Tasmania, the island state off Southern Australia, for a number of years. John Franklin joined the Royal Navy at the age of fourteen. He fought in some major historic battles during his career, the battle of Copenhagen in the year 1801 and in the battle of Trafalgar in the year 1805. In the year 1819 he commanded his first expedition to the Arctic and became known as 'the man who ate his boots’ when he and his fellow explorers were so hungry that they had to eat leather from their boots and pieces of lichen scraped from rocks. Eleven of the twenty men in his team died during that expedition. In the year 1829 the people of Spilsby presented John Franklin with an engraved silver plate, and he was knighted by King George The Fourth. Sir John Franklin died in the year 1847 when he was leading another expedition to chart the Arctic coast of Canada, in a region known as the Northwest Passage. Their boats became trapped in ice and all the members of the crew died. There is a plaque on the wall of the Franklin House Bakery in Spilsby that commemorates his birth in the town. There is also a large statue of Sir John Franklin in the central market area of Spilsby.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson is one of the most well known poets in the world. After Shakespeare, he is the second most quoted writer in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, having written gems like “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all” and “Theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do or die”. He was born in the town of Spilsby in the year 1809. He achieved the position of Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, and remained in this position for many years during the reign of Queen Victoria. Alfred, Lord Tennyson wrote short lyrics, blank verse and drama. Of the short lyrics that he wrote, one of the most famous pieces by Alfred, Lord Tennyson is The Charge of The Light Brigade. Blank verse was also a speciality of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, and one of the best examples is Idylls of the King. Alfred, Lord Tennyson also wrote dramatic plays. There are roads in Spilsby named Tennyson Way and Tennyson View, to commemorate Alfred, Lord Tennyson who is one of the most famous sons of Spilsby. Enthusiasts of philately, better known as stamp collecting, were delighted to get their hands on a first day cover that featured stamps commemorating Alfred, Lord Tennyson plus a Spilsby postmark.

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