Lady Franklin became one of the major sponsors of the expedition, but lack of funds forced Beatson to withdraw from the project in April 1852.

Lady Franklin became the ship's owner and, it being too late to reach the Bering Straits in time for the following summer, arranged for the vessel to make a brief sortie to the coast of Greenland under Edward Inglefield, RN, with Thomas Abernethy as his ice master, later that year.

Public subscriptions, including over £1671 from Van Diemens Land received early in 1853, allowed Lady Franklin to send the Isabel for the Bering Straits under William Kennedy, who had been commander of her previous expedition using the ketch Prince Albert in 1851.

After two years trading on the South American coast in the hope of finding another crew for the Bering Straits, Kennedy returned the ship to England in 1855.

After preparations were begun late in 1856 to send Isabel back to the Arctic via Baffin Bay, Lady Franklin was finally convinced that the ship was unsuitable.