Franklin, Jane (1792-1875)

English traveller and expedition benefactor. She accompanied her husband, the naval explorer John Franklin, on his tours through Syria, Turkey and Egypt, and financed a series of search expeditions when he disappeared while seeking the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. She was the first women to receive the Royal Geographical Society's Founder's Medal, awarded for her contribution to the exploration of the Canadian Arctic.

Franklin was born in England, and travelled widely with her father before her marriage in 1828. While in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania) during her husband's appointment as governor, she campaigned vociferously for the rights of women prisoners.

The navy co-operated with a number of the expeditions to find her husband, and after 10 years his diaries were recovered; they showed that he had proved the existence of the Northwest Passage.