Sir Robert McClure (1807-1873) was an Irish explorer who was educated at Eton and Sandhurst and entered the navy in 1824. He first journeyed into the Arctic in 1836, and later returned, in 1848, as part of an expedition sent in search of the missing Sir John Franklin and his crew. It was on his third trip to the Arctic, from 1850 to 1854, that McClure and his crew aboard the HMS Investigator became the first to both circumnavigate the Americas and successfully travel a Northwest Passage. Upon his return to England, McClure was knighted and he and his crew received a £10,000 reward for their discovery. He died in London on October 17, 1873.