Articles from this Category
July 7, 2020
Professor Reginald William James, FRS, physicist, university man and polar explorer, died in Cape Town on 7 July, 1964. James was physicist of Shackleton’s Endurance as part of the Imperial Transcontinental Antarctic…
June 15, 2020
March 9, 2020
Rev. Arnold Spencer-Smith, clergyman, photographer and Antarctic explorer, died on the Antarctic continent on 9 March, 1916, during the second sledging session of the Ross Sea party of Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-continental…
March 2, 2020
ON THIS DATE IN 1903: DEPARTURE OF MORNING FROM ANTARCTICA
SY Morning under Captain William Colbeck, a relief vessel of R. F. Scott’s British National Antarctic Expedition, left McMurdo Sound at about 2pm on 2 March,…
February 21, 2020
Henryk Arctowski (born Henryk Artzt), Polish scientist and explorer, died 21 February, 1958, in Bethesda, northwest of Washington, D.C. Arctowski conducted much scientific work and observation as part of the Belgian…
January 30, 2020
Sir Daniel Fulthorpe Gooch 3rd Baronet Gooch, of Clewer Park, died on 22 December, 1926. Gooch was an expert breeder of greyhounds and was, for a short period, the dog handler of Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-continental…
January 23, 2020
ON THIS DATE IN 1895: FIRST UNDISPUTED LANDING ON THE ANTARCTIC CONTINENT
A party of six men from the ship Antarctic set foot on the Antarctic continent on 24 January, 1895, in the vicinity of Cape Adare. The party included…
December 16, 2019
Thomas Frank MacLeod was born on 3 April, 1873, in Glasgow and grew up in Stornoway, on the island of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, Scotland. By the age of fourteen McLeod was a man of the sea. He fought in the Boer War where …
November 26, 2019
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, BAKEWELL!
William Lincoln Bakewell, sailor and explorer, was born in Joliet, Illinois, USA, on 26 November, 1888. Bakewell was signed on to Shackleton’s ‘Endurance’ at Buenos Aires as Able Seaman.…
October 28, 2019
The southern march of Shackleton’s British Antarctic Expedition 1907-1909 (Nimrod expedition) to reach the South Pole began on 29 October, 1908.
Shackleton led the polar team which comprised Jameson Adams, Eric …
September 29, 2019
Bertram Armytage, carer for the ponies of Shackleton’s Nimrod expedition, was born 29 September, 1869, in Geelong, Victoria, Australia.
Armytage attended Geelong Grammar School as well as Melbourne Grammar School…
September 2, 2019
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MACKLIN!
Colonel Alexander Hepburne Macklin, OBE, MC, TD, Scottish physician and RAMC officer, was born 1 September, 1889, in India. Macklin was surgeon on Shackleton’s Imperial Transcontinental…
January 1, 2019
1900: BORCHGREVINK & CO. AT CAPE ADARE
1902: WITH ‘DISCOVERY’ NEARING THE ANTARCTIC CIRCLE
1903: WITH SCOTT ON THE POLAR TREK
1908: ‘NIMROD’ LEFT LYTTELTON, NZ
1909: IN THE ICE WITH THE ‘POURQUI PAS’
1909: ‘NIMROD’…
August 31, 2017
In August, 1916, at Punta Arenas, Shackleton, in his own words, ‘begged the Chilian Government to let me have the Yelcho for a last attempt to reach the island [Elephant Island].’ The government allowed…
January 30, 2017
ON THIS DATE IN 1916
On 30 January, 1916, Sir Clements Robert Markham died in London.
Born at Stillingfleet on 20 July, 1830, Markham joined the Royal Navy in 1844 and spent the next six years serving on various vessels …
January 10, 2017
Too weak for hunting, physicist Richard Walters Richards became the lookout of the stranded party from the Ross Sea end of Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-continental Antarctic Expedition. On 10 January, 1917, through…
January 5, 2017
The death of Sir Ernest H. Shackleton
On 4 January, 1922, the ‘Quest’ reached South Georgia and cast anchor off the Grytviken whaling station. Sir Ernest Shackleton visited old friends at the whaling station and organised…
December 14, 2016
Sir Ernest in Dublin: Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Dublin Nimrod lecture
in aid of Lady Dudley’s district nurses, 14 December, 1909.
Almost immediately after the British Antarctic Expedition (the Nimrod expedition),…
November 22, 2016
On 20 November, 1940, George Marston died. He was official artist on Shackleton’s expeditions aboard the Nimrod and the Endurance.
Marston was born on 19 March, 1882 in Southsea, Portsmouth, England. Having left home…
October 10, 2016
On 10 October, 1861, Fridtjof Nansen—zoologist, oceanographer, athlete, scholar, academic, Arctic explorer, writer, diplomat, humanitarian—was born at Store Frøen, near Oslo, Norway. A leader in many fields …
September 26, 2016
On 26 September, 1966, Andrew Keith Jack, physicist of the Aurora, industrial chemist, died.
Andrew Keith Jack (known as Keith Jack) was born on 9 September, 1885, in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Keith Jack was …
September 26, 2016
On 26 September, 1974, Charles Green, the cook aboard the Endurance, died in Hull, England. He was known as the ‘Antarctic Chef’.
Charles Green was born on 24 November, 1888, in Richmond, Surrey, the eldest of four children…
September 24, 2016
On 24 September, 1870, Helmer Julius Hanssen, Norwegian polar explorer, was born in Bjørnskinn, on the island of Andøya in northern Norway. He grew up farming and fishing with his father. Hanssen was an experienced …
September 20, 2016
On 20 September, 1924, Albert Ernest Holness died when he was washed overboard and lost at sea whilst serving on the trawler Lord Lonsdale off the Faroe Islands, Scotland.
Born in Hull on 7 December, 1892, Ernie Holness…
September 16, 2016
Jean-Baptiste Charcot was a French polar explorer and expedition leader. His two expeditions in the first decade of the twentieth century explored, charted and mapped areas of Antarctica such as the Antarctic …
September 12, 2016
Joseph Russell Stenhouse was born on 15 November, 1887, in Dumbarton, Scotland. He was educated at Barrow Higher Grade school but left at age fourteen. He was employed at the Barrow offices of Lloyds Register of Shipping…
September 11, 2016
On 11 September, 1882, Robert Selbie Clark, biologist aboard the Endurance, was born in Aberdeen, Scotland. Clark attended Aberdeen Grammar School and later attained two degrees—M.A. & B.Sc.—from Aberdeen …
September 11, 2016
On 11 September, 1874, Henry ‘Chippy’ McNish was born at 8 Lyons Lane, Port Glasgow, Inverclyde, Scotland. He was the third eldest of eleven children of John McNish and Mary Jane McNish (née Wade). It seems little is known…
August 30, 2016
At daybreak of 30 August, 1916, the weather was still foggy. Sir Ernest Shackleton and Frank Worsley stayed up all night, at the bridge of the Yelcho hoping for the fog to ease. They feared that they would run into pack ice,…
August 29, 2016
On 29 August, 1875, Robert Forde, Antarctic expedition veteran, was born in Moviddy, near Bandon, Co. Cork. Forde was part of Robert F. Scott’s Terra Nova expedition.
Robert was the youngest child of George Forde and…
August 25, 2016
On 25 August, 1916, Sir Ernest Shackleton left Punta Arenas aboard the Yelcho for the fourth attempt to rescue the twenty-two men stranded on Elephant Island.
Following the failure of the attempt to reach Elephant Island…
August 24, 2016
On 24 August, 1870, Nicolai Hanson, zoologist and Antarctic explorer, was born at Kristiansund, Norway. He studied zoology at the University of Kristiania and, in the late 1890s, undertook field work for the British…
August 23, 2016
On 23 August, 1898, the Southern Cross left London at the beginning of the British Antarctic Expedition 1898–1900. The exhibition was the project of the half-British, half-Norwegian Carsten Borchgrevink and was …
August 22, 2016
On 22 August, 1918, Alf Cheetham, veteran of Scott and Shackleton Antarctic expeditions, died aboard S.S. Prunelle when the ship was torpedoed by a German U-boat off Blyth in the North Sea.
Alf Cheetham was born 6 May,…
August 19, 2016
On 19 August, 1939, Frank Wild, veteran of five Antarctic expeditions of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, died in South Africa.
Frank Wild was born in Skelton-in-Cleveland in north Yorkshire, England, 10 April,…
August 18, 2016
On 18 August, 1909, Shackleton wrote a letter to Emily, his wife, informing her that the Prime Minister, Herbert H. Asquith, had confirmed a parliamentary grant of £20,000 towards his debts and the cost of the Nimrod …
August 16, 2016
ON THIS DAY IN 1796
On 16 August, 1796, Francis Crozier was born in Banbridge, Co. Down. He was a veteran polar scientist and explorer, being on five expeditions to the polar regions—north and south. He assumed command…
July 26, 2016
On 27 July, 1938, Tom Crean died at the Bon Secour Home in Cork. Requiem Mass was held at the Church of the Sacred Heart, Anascaul, and the funeral party then proceeded to …
October 27, 2015
At 5pm, this day, 100 years ago, Sir Ernest Shackleton gave the order to abandon ship, at the position of lat 69. 5′ South, long 51.30 West
‘The floes, with the force of millions of tons of moving ice behind …