A portrait and autograph letter signed by Rear Admiral Richard Collinson 1865

Collinson, Rear Admiral Richard (1811–1883). Autograph letter signed dated 21 December 1864 [together] with a contemporary portrait Woodburytype by Lock & Whitfield.
 
Single page, on blind-stamped crested paper; creasing to the left hand corners and faint adhesive marks as well as stains at left edge. The portrait 270 × 200 mm. The letter is good and the portrait very good condition.
 
A short but interesting letter from the distinguished Arctic explorer and naval officer Rear Admiral Sir Richard Collinson, written during the period of his scholarly work for the Hakluyt Society. Collinson thanks his correspondent “for the tracings from Hakluyt”, and adds that he “will avail myself of your kind offer when I have got the matter a little more in hand.” The reference appears to concern Richard Hakluyt’s Principal Navigations — source material Collinson was consulting in preparation for his later editorial work on The Three Voyages of Martin Frobisher, in search of a Passage to India by the North-West, A.D. 1576–8 (Hakluyt Society, 1867).
 
As commander of HMS Enterprise (1850–55) in the Franklin search, he navigated the Northwest Passage from the Pacific, charting over 5,000 miles of previously unmapped coast. Though overshadowed by McClure’s companion expedition, Collinson’s seamanship and hydrographic precision were extraordinary, earning him the Royal Geographical Society’s medal and a K.C.B. in 1875.
 
The accompanying portrait, from Lock & Whitfield’s Men of the Day series (Woodburytype), provides a contemporary likeness of Collinson in his later years.