Portrait of the Navigator, James Weddell (1787-1834), bust length, in a blue coat and white stock

Weddell served on merchantmen and in the Navy before being put on half pay at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. He accepted command of the Jane of Leith, for a sealing voyage in the Southern Seas from 1819-21. He embarked on a second voyage in the same brig with the cutter Beaufoy in 1822, proceeding to the Falkland Islands, Cape Horn, South Shetlands, South Georgia, and the South Orkneys which he had discovered on his first voyage. He continued south as far as latitude 74° 15' in February 1823 (into the Sea named after him), the highest southern latitude yet reached, returning to England in 1824 and publishing A Voyage towards the South Pole performed in the years 1822-24 in 1824, publishing a second edition including 'Observations on the probability of reaching the South Pole' and 'An account of a Second Voyage performed by the Beaufoy to the same Seas' in 1827.

An undated miniature portrait of Weddell by Dodd is in the collection of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society and a lifesize copy of this latter portrait was presented to the Royal Geographical Society in 1839.