A medal awarded to one of the men who died on an ill-fated Arctic expedition is expected to sell at auction for £30,000 next month.

The honour was presented posthumously to John Irving who sailed as part of Sir John Franklin's expedition which left for the Arctic in 1845 but became trapped in ice resulting in the deaths of more than 120 men.

Irving, who served in the Royal Navy, was among the first to die and his grave was found in 1879.

The Arctic Medal, which is being sold by Irving's family, was presented by Queen Victoria to members of several expeditions between 1818 and 1855.

It was announced earlier this week that the wreck of one of the ships which took part in the expedition has just been found about 1,200 miles northwest of Toronto in Canada.

The expedition was a search for the fabled Northwest Passage - the long-sought shortcut to Asia that supposedly ran from the Atlantic to the Pacific by way of the Arctic.

The medal will be auctioned at Christie's Travel, Science and Natural History sale on October 8.