Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
The voyage of the James Caird was a journey of 1,300 kilometres (800 mi) from Elephant Island in the South Shetland Islands through the Southern Ocean to South Georgia, undertaken by Sir Ernest Shackleton and five companions to obtain rescue for the main body of the stranded Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917. Many historians regard the voyage of the crew in a 22.5-foot (6.9 m) ship's boat through the "Furious Fifties" as the greatest small-boat journey ever completed.
Thomas Crean was an Irish seaman and Antarctic explorer who was awarded the Albert Medal for Lifesaving (AM).
The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917 is considered to be the last major expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Conceived by Sir Ernest Shackleton, the expedition was an attempt to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent. After Roald Amundsen's South Pole expedition in 1911, this crossing remained, in Shackleton's words, the "one great main object of Antarctic journeyings". Shackleton's expedition failed to accomplish this objective but became recognized instead as an epic feat of endurance.
Endurance was the three-masted barquentine in which Sir Ernest Shackleton and a crew of 27 men sailed for the Antarctic on the 1914–1917 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. The ship, originally named Polaris, was built at Framnæs shipyard and launched in 1912 from Sandefjord in Norway. When one of her commissioners, the Belgian Adrien de Gerlache, went bankrupt, the remaining one sold the ship for less than the shipyard had charged – but as Lars Christensen was the owner of Polaris, there was no hardship involved. The ship was bought by Shackleton in January 1914 for the expedition, which would be her first voyage. A year later, she became trapped in pack ice and finally sank in the Weddell Sea off Antarctica on 21 November 1915. All of the crew survived her sinking and were eventually rescued in 1916 after using the ship's boats to travel to Elephant Island and Shackleton, the ship's captain Frank Worsley, and four others made a voyage to seek help.
Frank Arthur Worsley was a New Zealand sailor and explorer who served on Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1916, as captain of Endurance. He also served in the Royal Navy Reserve during the First World War.
Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage, is a 1959 book written by Alfred Lansing, about the failure of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition led by Sir Ernest Shackleton, in its attempt to cross the Antarctic continent in 1914.
The Ross Sea party was a component of Sir Ernest Shackleton's 1914–1917 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Its task was to lay a series of supply depots across the Great Ice Barrier from the Ross Sea to the Beardmore Glacier, along the polar route established by earlier Antarctic expeditions. The expedition's main party, under Shackleton, was to land near Vahsel Bay on the Weddell Sea on the opposite coast of Antarctica, and to march across the continent via the South Pole to the Ross Sea. As the main party would be unable to carry sufficient fuel and supplies for the whole distance, their survival depended on the Ross Sea party setting up supply depots, which would cover the final quarter of their journey.
The Shackleton–Rowett Expedition (1921–22) was Sir Ernest Shackleton's last Antarctic project, and the final episode in the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.
Perce Blackborow (1896–1949) was a Welsh sailor and a stowaway on Ernest Shackleton's ill-fated Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917.
Mrs Chippy was a male ship's cat who accompanied Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917.
Henry McNish, often referred to as Harry McNish or by the nickname Chippy, was the carpenter on Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917. He was responsible for much of the work that ensured the crew's survival after their ship, the Endurance, was destroyed when it became trapped in pack ice in the Weddell Sea. He modified the small boat, James Caird, that allowed Shackleton and five men to make a voyage of hundreds of miles to fetch help for the rest of the crew.
Alfred Cheetham was a member of several Antarctic expeditions. He served as third officer for both the Nimrod expedition and Imperial Trans-Antarctic expedition.
John William Vincent was an English seaman and member of Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. He was one of the five men who accompanied Shackleton on his epic crossing from Elephant Island to South Georgia and was one of only four of the crew of Endurance not to receive the Polar Medal.
Aeneas Lionel Acton Mackintosh was a British Merchant Navy officer and Antarctic explorer who commanded the Ross Sea party as part of Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914–1917. The Ross Sea party's mission was to support Shackleton's proposed transcontinental march by laying supply depots along the latter stages of the march's intended route. In the face of persistent setbacks and practical difficulties, Mackintosh's party fulfilled its task, although he and two others died in the course of their duties. Mackintosh's first Antarctic experience was as second officer on Shackleton's Nimrod expedition, 1907–1909. Shortly after his arrival in the Antarctic, a shipboard accident destroyed his right eye, and he was sent back to New Zealand. He returned in 1909 to participate in the later stages of the expedition; his will and determination in adversity impressed Shackleton, and led to his Ross Sea party appointment in 1914.
The drift of the Antarctic exploration vessel SY Aurora was an ordeal which lasted 312 days, affecting the Ross Sea party of Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914–1917. It began when the ship broke loose from its anchorage in McMurdo Sound in May 1915, during a gale. Caught in heavy pack ice and unable to manoeuvre, Aurora, with eighteen men aboard, was carried into the open waters of the Ross Sea and Southern Ocean, leaving ten men stranded ashore with meagre provisions.
Lionel Greenstreet was the first officer of the Endurance and a member of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917, for which he was awarded the Polar Medal. When he died on 13 January 1979, he was the last survivor of the Weddell Sea party within the expedition.
Timothy McCarthy was an Irish leading seaman (LB). He is best known for his service in the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1916, for which he was awarded the Bronze Polar Medal.
Shackleton's Argonauts : A Saga of the Antarctic Ice-Pack (1948) is a children's information book by Australian photographer and explorer Frank Hurley. The book was also illustrated by Hurley, and won the Children's Book of the Year Award: Older Readers in 1948.
South is a book by Ernest Shackleton describing the second expedition to Antarctica led by him, the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914 to 1917. It was published in London by William Heinemann in 1919.
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