An ordinary meeting of the Society was held on the 1st April 2009. The President was in the chair. She introduced the speaker Mr Ken Ingamells who spoke to the title ‘Shackleton in Antarctica’.
Mr Ingamells described this time as the ‘heroic era of Polar exploration’. Sir Ernest Shackleton was a doctor’s son from Sydenham Kent. He was apprenticed to a shipping line and had worked hard to get his masters ticket. He responded to an advertisement for a leader for an Antarctic expedition that was being promoted by the Royal Geographical Society but Captain Scott was appointed. Scott planned to include merchant seamen and Shackleton was appointed to be in charge of them. Scott built his base at McMurdo Sound and in Spring they set out for the Pole but had to turn back because of illness including scurvy. Shackleton became so ill he could not pull a sledge and was sent home – he felt in disgrace. On return he became secretary of the Scottish Geographical Society. He reorganised it and built it up to become a powerful force and made influential friends. He tried to become an MP and when he was not elected took up journalism. He then decided to lead his own expedition to Antarctica. Scott was outraged and antagonistic and wouldn’t let Shackleton dock his ship, the Terra Nova, and use the hut in McMurdo Sound. Shackleton’s expedition eventually turned back 100 miles from the Pole as he considered that seriouslydeteriorating weatherwould put their lives at risk. All his party returned safely.
Then Scott and Amundsen reached the Pole. Thus the only ‘first’ leftwas a first transantarctic expedition. Shackleton persuaded rich people to fund one – naming lifeboats etc. after the donors. His ship, The Endurance, was actually built for the North Pole, where conditions are different. He purchased it for a knockdown price as a result of a cancelled expedition. In the summer of 1914 he decided the project should be abandoned but Winston Churchill told him to proceed.
There was an early and severe winter that year and they were forced to sail via the South Sandwich Islands to the Weddell Sea where strong currents and thick ice preventedEndurance making the planned landfall. They became trapped in ice and the expedition was forced to spend the winter in the ship. The boat was lifted by the ice, tipped on its side and eventually crushed forcing them to live on the ice. In spring the ice broke up and Shackleton decided to abandon camp. It took 3 days to cover 5 miles on the ice and they lost a boat in doing so. Shackleton decided to take to the sea and the whole party eventually landed on Elephant Island from where Shackleton and 5 crew set sail in a small open boat. They sailed the 850 miles to South Georgia in 16 days, sailing through storms, and losing their rudder, landing at King Haakon Bay where Shackleton’s cave is situated. They then had to cross the icy mountains of South Georgia to reach the Stromness whaling station. Shackleton persuaded a ship’s master to sail him to Elephant Island to rescue the rest of the party. Not a man died.
Sir Ernest Shackleton eventually returned to the Antarctic and died in South Georgia in 1922.
The meeting then proceeded to the AGM of the Society. [To be reported at the next AGM]