[1][2] Ross was an active participant in the Napoleonic Wars, being present at an action where HMS Briseis, commanded by his uncle, captured Le Petit Poucet (a French privateer) on 9 October 1812.

[1] Ross participated in John's unsuccessful first Arctic voyage in search of a Northwest Passage in 1818 aboard Isabella.

[2] Between 1819 and 1827 Ross took part in four Arctic expeditions under William Edward Parry, taking particular interest in magnetism and natural history.

It was during this trip that a small party led by James Ross (including Thomas Abernethy) located the position of the north magnetic pole on 1 June 1831, on the Boothia Peninsula in the far north of Canada, and James Ross personally planted the British flag at the pole.

In December 1835 he offered his services to the Admiralty to resupply 11 whaling ships which had become trapped in Baffin Bay.

The crossing was difficult, and by the time he had reached the last known position of the whalers in June, all but one had managed to return home.

[7] On 8 April 1839, Ross was given orders to command an expedition to Antarctica for the purposes of 'magnetic research and geographical discovery'.

Captain Francis Crozier was second-in-command of the expedition, commanding HMS Terror, with senior lieutenant Archibald McMurdo.

Support for the expedition had been arranged by Francis Beaufort, hydrographer of the Navy and a member of several scientific societies.

[8][9] En route to the Southern Ocean, Ross established magnetic measurement stations in Saint Helena, Cape Town, and Kerguelen before arriving in Hobart in early 1840 and establishing a further permanent station with the help of governor John Franklin before waiting for summer.

He was awarded the Grande Médaille d'Or des Explorations in 1843, knighted in 1844, and elected to the Royal Society in 1848.

[16] Because of heavy ice in Baffin Bay he only reached the northeast tip of Somerset Island where he was frozen in at Port Leopold.

[21] Ross remained an officer in the Royal Navy for the rest of his life and was subsequently promoted several times, his final rank being Rear-Admiral of the Red awarded in August 1861.