G. F. Lyon

George Francis Lyon (23 January 1796 – 8 October 1832) was an English naval officer and explorer of Africa and the Arctic. While not having a particularly distinguished career, he is remembered for the entertaining journals he kept and for the pencil drawings he completed in the Arctic; this information was useful to later expeditions.

Early life

He was born in Chichester, the elder son of Lieutenant Colonel George Lyon of the 11th Light Dragoons and Louisa Alexandrina Hart. She was in turn the second daughter of Sir William Neville Hart and Elizabeth Aspinwall. He was educated at Burney's Academy in Gosport, Hampshire.

Naval career

After joining the Royal Navy he was entered on the books of HMS Royal William at Spithead in 1808 before going to sea aboard HMS Milford.

Niger River

In 1818, he was sent along with Joseph Ritchie by Sir John Barrow to find the course of the Niger River and the location of Timbuktu. The expedition was underfunded, lacked support and because the ideas of John Barrow departed from Tripoli and thus had to cross the Sahara as part of their journey.

A year later, due to much officialdom they had only got as far as Murzuk where they both fell ill. Ritchie never recovered and died there, but Lyon survived and travelled a little further around the region. Exactly a year to the day he left, he arrived back in Tripoli, the expedition being a complete failure.

Northwest Passage

Having been promised a promotion on his return, he now set about trying to pester the Admiralty into fulfilling their promise. He irritated enough people that his reward was, in 1821, to be given the command of HMS Hecla under William Edward Parry on his second attempt at the Northwest Passage. Among Lyon's lieutenants was Henry Parkyns Hoppner. The expedition also included Francis Crozier and James Clark Ross. Lyon received his promotion to captain on his return.