Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Markham, Albert Hastings
MARKHAM, Sir ALBERT HASTINGS (1841–1918), admiral and Arctic explorer, was born at Bagnères-de-Bigorre, Hautes Pyrénées, 11 November 1841, the fourth son of Captain John Markham, R.N., by his wife, Marianne, daughter of John Brock Wood. After being educated at home and at Eastman's Royal Naval Academy, Southsea, he entered the navy in 1856 and served eight years on the China station, being promoted lieutenant in 1862. He took part in the advance on Peking in 1860 and in the suppression of the Taiping rising in 1862–1864. After serving in the Mediterranean, Markham spent several years on the Australian station, where he was actively engaged in suppressing the abuses of the South Sea labour traffic. In 1872 he became commander, and in 1873, while on leave, he sailed in the whaler Arctic to Davis Strait and Baffin's Bay in order to study ice conditions. He has given an account of this voyage in A Whaling Cruise to Baffin's Bay (1874). In the Arctic expedition of 1875–1876 under (Sir) George Strong Nares [q.v.] Markham was in command of H.M.S. Alert. His sledging party, in a spirited endeavour to reach the Pole from winter quarters in latitude 82° 27′ N. on the western shore of Robeson channel, gained the latitude of 83° 20′ 26″ N. in longitude 64° W. in May 1876. This latitude was reached without the help of dogs, and the feat remained a record until broken by Fridtjof Nansen in 1895. For his services on this expedition Markham was promoted captain, and received a gold watch from the Royal Geographical Society.
From 1879 to 1882 Markham served with the navy in the Pacific; from 1883 to 1886 he was captain of H.M.S. Vernon, the naval torpedo school at Portsmouth, and from 1886 to 1889 commodore of the training squadron. Promoted rear-admiral in 1891, the following year he was appointed second-in-command of the Mediterranean squadron under Sir George Tryon [q.v.]. During manœuvres off the coast of Syria on 22 June 1893 Markham's ship Camperdown rammed the flagship Victoria, which sank with great loss of life. The court martial exonerated Markham from blame, since he had carried out the orders of the commander-in-chief. From 1901 to 1904 he was commander-in-chief at the Nore; in 1906 he retired from the navy.
During earlier periods of his life Markham showed a desire to return to the work of Arctic discovery, by accompanying Sir Henry Gore-Booth on a cruise to Novaya Zemlya in 1879, described by him in A Polar Reconnaissance (1879), while in 1886 he made a careful survey of ice conditions in Hudson Strait and Bay, for which he received the thanks of the Canadian government. During the European War of 1914–1918 he devoted himself to the interests of the mine-sweeping service. Markham was created a K.C.B. in 1903 and for some years was an aide-de-camp to Queen Victoria. Among his numerous publications the most important are The Great Frozen Sea (1877), The Life of John Davis, the Navigator (1882), The Life of Sir John Franklin (1890), and The Life of Sir Clements Markham (his cousin, 1917). He married in 1894 Theodora, daughter of Francis T. Gervers, of Amat, Ross-shire, by whom he had one daughter. He died in London 28 October 1918.
[The Times, 29 October 1918; Geographical Journal, January 1919; A. H. Markham, The Great Frozen Sea, 1877. See also M. E. and F. A. Markham, Life of Sir A. H. Markham, 1927.]