Letter from Eleanor Franklin to her father Sir John Franklin,

Eleanor Isabella Franklin (after her marriage she became Eleanor Gell) was the only child of Sir John Franklin (1786-1847) who led an expedition to discover the North West Passage in 1845. By 1847, no more had been heard of Franklin and his crew, and the British Navy began to send out search expeditions; this letter was written to accompany Sir James Ross on his search but brought back to her on its unsuccessful completion.

In her letter she says that she is writing again in hope that one of the expeditions will find him and that she cannot imagine his current circumstances but reports James Ross's optimism about finding him.  She gives a lot of detail about aspects of personal, national and international news that Franklin would be unaware of, including John Richardson's marriage and knighthood; France becoming a republic; recent Chartist demonstration in London; deaths of a number of acquaintances; expected return of Mr Gell (her future husband) from Van Diemen's Land to England, and political and other matters in Van Diemen's Land; the effective cessation of transportation. She describes the method of dispatch of earlier letters for him and reports of an award of a service pension to him. She also gives news of her own extensive travels and of her recovery from measles.