Lost photographs of doomed Arctic explorers to be auctioned – in pictures

Capt Sir John Franklin. A Royal Navy officer and Arctic explorer, Franklin set off from Greenhithe in Kent in 1845 to find the Northwest Passage, a polar route to Asia. The images were taken by the Richard Beard Studio in Regent Street, central London, on 15-17 May 1845 onboard HMS Erebus three days before it was to set sail and never to return

Photograph: Sotheby’s