A Shackleton Scrapbook

This 'scrapbook' is a way for me to provide an annotated list of resources I have discovered while reading about Shackleton and his polar exploration. It is not, and will not be, a complete document. In conversation with others I realised that these notes may have some value.  In the interest of transparency I will admit that I started on this journey after purchasing a Lego model of the Endurance, along with the life boat model of the James Caird.

LEGO model of the Ship Endurance

Blog Posts (my own blog)

Shackleton's Proposal of the Third Expedition -1914.  A copy of a proposal for the expedition with appeared in at least two newspapers.

Shackleton's Ship Endurance. An article in the Queenslander which documents the arrival of the Endurance in the Thames. It describes the boat and its design, and provided a plan of the vessel. Also includes a partial list of the expedition participants.

The Endurance Dogs. (pending)

Blog posts (not my own)

What books did Shackleton take with him on the Endurance
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35633374 

Shackleton Online - a collection from the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge University.

Lego models by Benedek Lampert

Books

South. Ernest Shackleton (1919). Available at Project Gutenberg. This is Shackleton's account of the Endurance Expedition, along with his derived accounts for the components he was not present for, namely the story of the Ross Sea party. It also includes a number of appendices on various topics related to the expedition. I enjoyed this read, there is an optimism in the hardship which is very appealing.

Book recommendations from the ErnestShackleton.net
http://www.ernestshackleton.net/recommendedreading 

Rare books from the Era of Polar Exploration
https://www.peterharrington.co.uk/catalogsearch/result/?q=shackleton

Book recommendations from Viking Tours an Antarctic tour company
https://www.vikingcruises.com.au/expeditions/cruise-destinations/antarctica/antarctic-explorer/reading-list.html

Frank Hurley

I realised that many of the images of the Endurance I already recognised from seeing Hurley's photography on other contexts. To place these images into the context of Shackleton's writing has transformed my appreciation of what Hurley achieved with his camera.

National Library of Scotland

State Library New South Wales

Podcasts

What would Shackleton Do? This is the question asked in the midst of the Covid19 Pandemic. It is a series of five episodes of approximately 20 minutes each which cover the theme words, Optimism, Patience, Idealism, Courage the four words chosen by Shackleton as essential qualities of polar explorers, and it adds a fifth which they argue is implied but not stated by Shackleton, Kindness.

Visual Media

Endurance. Disney+ has this great National Geographic documentary, which uses colourised versions of Frank Hurley's footage from the Endurance Expedition. Its runs a parallel narrative about an expedition in 2022 to discover the wreck of the Endurance, the juxtaposition of the two levels of technology shows starkly how much change 100 years has made.

Postage Stamps

Series Great Britain (2016) 

Version history.

6 Jan 2025 - First hit of the publish button.

15 Apr 2025 - Some additions, to blog posts by others, Frank Hurley and postage stamps.

Shackleton's Ship Endurance

The following article from The Queenslander of Saturday 19 September 1914 is a physical description of the ship Endurance, used by Ernest Shackleton for his trans-Antarctic expedition along with a summary of the crews for both the Endurance and the 'pick up' vessel the Aurora. 

The article starts with announcing the arrival of the Endurance in the Thames, however by the time of publication in The Queenslander, Shackleton and his team had departed  both London and subsequently Plymouth (on 8th August) bound for Buenos Aires. The gap between the event and the reportage is probably a result of how long news took to travel around the world in 1914, even though telegram was available in many parts of the world.

The article names sixteen people for the Endurance party, but in reality there were twenty-eight persons who travelled to Antarctica aboard the Endurance. Wikipedia has a list of 28, but this does not align with this published list. Some departed the expedition prior to leaving England, or at Buenos Aires in order to answer a call to war. Shackleton offered the whole expedition to the war effort but was instructed to proceed with the endeavour. The people who departed the expedition and do not appear in the Wikipedia list are F. Dobbs, C. Brocklehurst, V. Studd, and Mr Jeffreys. Another Wikipedia article also lists Sir Daniel Gooch, who joined the expedition at Buenos Aires and departed at South Georgia. Gooch was a dog handler and his absence is one of the few absences who absence is recorded as having a negative effect on the expedition.

ANTARCTIC EXPLORATION.

SHACKLETON'S SHIP ENDURANCE. 

The ship Endurance in which Sir Ernest Shackleton is going to make his voyage to the Antarctic recently arrived in the Thames from Norway. The Endurance is a new vessel. She was built under the name of the Polaris by a syndicate of Polar explorers, who proposed to utilise her for pleasure cruising in Polar seas by wealthy people. 

 Mr. Frank Wild, second in command to Sir Ernest Shackleton, who is in charge of the refitting of the ship, has provided additional accommodation for the members of the expedition by erecting a deck house from the main mast aft to the stern for officers, and one from amidships to the foremast containing the mess room for sixteen people, kitchen, and pantry. The roofs of these superstructures, connected by gangways, form a comfortable promenade and bridge deck, which is a novelty in such vessels. A large cabin in the fore part of the main deck forms the men's quarters. Heating throughout by means of steam radiators will prevent the air from becoming vitiated by foul gases, and do away with the collection of dust and dirt inseparable from coal fires. All the internal arrangements have been made with a view to making the "'tween decks" cosy and warm without in any way interfering with a due amount of ventilation. A better designed and stauncher vessel, says Mr. Wild, never left the shipwrights' hands, or one more suited to the purpose for which she is intended. On June 5 the Endurance made a three hours' trip to try her engines and adjust her com passes. She then proved to be an unusually handy craft. 

Her dimensions (builder's measurement) are as follows : Length over all, 144 ft. ; length on water line, 125 ft. ; extreme breadth. 25ft. ; depth moulded, 15ft. 9in. ; gross tonnage. 384 ; net tonnage, 171 ; mean draught loaded, 13ft. ; corresponding displacement 658 tons ; coal consumption per diem, when steaming seven and a half knots, about three tons. 

 

The following list of members of the Imperial Transantarctic Expedition has been officially announced :

— Weddell Sea Party Sir Ernest H. Shackleton, leader of the expedition; Mr. Frank Wild, second in command ; Mr. G. Marston, Mr. T. Crean, Captain Orde Lees, Lieut. F. Dobbs, Lieut. Courtney Brocklehurst, Mr. J. Wordie. geologist ; Mr. R. W. James, physicist and magnetician ; Mr. L. H. Hussey, assistant magnetician and meteorologist ; Mr. F. Hurley, photographer and kinematographer, Mr. V. Studd, geologist ; Lieut. F. A. Worsley, in navigating command of the Endurance on the voyage from London to Buenos Aires and the Weddell Sea, and afterwards to take part in the surveying and exploring of the coast ; Mr. Jeffreys, Mr. Hudson, and Mr. A. Cheetham. 

— Ross Sea Party : Lieut. Aeneas Mackintosh, leader and meteorologist ; Mr. E. Joyce, zoologist ; Mr. H. Ninnis ; Mr. H. Wild ; and Dr. Macklin, surgeon. There only remain two vacancies, and these are to be filled, by another doctor and a biologist. The Ross Sea party will sail in the Aurora.

Shackleton's proposal of a third expedition to the Antarctic - 1914

In this article I present an infographic from the era of polar exploration, this appeared in both the Sunday Times of 8 March, 1914 and The Globe of 14 March 1914. I think it could be best understood as an advertorial. 

The infographic has four inserts over a map of the route proposed for the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. The inserts are (a) how to determine the location of a pole, with the title "Message of the Shadows (b) a comparison of the height of the Antarctic to a number of known mountains (c) a portrait of Shackleton and (d) an illustration of the Terra Nova from a previous expedition to Antarctica.

I have used the Sunday Times as the image source as it is clearer. The transcribed text is from The Globe as it has already been corrected by other Trove volunteers.

Shackleton's Antarctic Expedition

"The object of my new expedition is to cover the South Polar continent, an unknown territory of 5,000,000 square miles from the Weddell Sea, on the South American side, to the Ross Sea, on the Australasian side, a distance of 1700 land miles. More than half the distance will be on a positively new route. It will be the biggest Polar journey ever attempted." So says Sir Ernest Shackleton, in speaking of his forthcoming expedition. He proposes to leave Buenos Ayres next October, and reach, if possible, 7 deg. South latitude, where a good landing-place was discovered by the Germans. Once the Pole is attained from the Weddell Sea, says Sir Ernest, the rest of the journey from the Pole to the Winter quarters on the Ross Sea will not be difficult. He hopes to come out on the other side of the continent in the Ross Sea in March of next year. He does not propose to depend on the depots. Should they not be able to arrive at the land in the Weddell Sea early enough, they would make permanent Winter quarters, and lay out depots before the Winter, in December, January, and February, crossing the continent the following season. The first ship in this case will continue working in the Weddell Sea and on the German land coast, and when the season is too far advanced for more work to be done, and she will return to South America, and continue the following season, when she will pick up the Weddell Sea party. The second ship will leave New Zealand, land a party in the Ross Sea to meet the transcontinental party, and the transcontinental party will return in the second ship to New Zealand. Although the journey seems a very long one, Shackleton feels, confident that it is possible to accomplish the transcontinental journey in five months under favorable conditions, but in order to be prepared for all eventualities he will have the base in the Weddell Sea to fall back upon should the obstacles be insurmountable the first-season. Of recent years the interest of geographers and the public has been concentrated on the approach to the Pole from the Ross Sea. Except for Dr. Bruce's discovery of Coat's Land in 1904, and the Filchner expedition of last year, when a landing was made in 78deg. South latitude, we know scarcely more of the Weddell quadrant than we did in Weddell's days. No one knows whether the great plateau dips gradually from the Pole towards the Weddell Sea or whether the great Victorian chain of mountains, which has been traced to the Pole, extends across the continent and links up with the Andes. The discovery of the great mountain range which we assume is there will be one of the biggest geographical triumphs possible.

Insert A 

 

MESSAGE OF THE SHADOWS. 

The shadows in the Diagram at the top form one means of locating the position at the Pole. If the traveller has reached the area of the Pole the sun begins to circle round him all day at the same height above the horizon. If the length of the flag pole is identical at, say, the hours shown in the Diagram, the conclusion is that one is within the coveted area. The determination of the actual spot would require more delicate measurements.

Insert B

Height Comparisons

This diagram shows the average height of the Antarctic above sea-level compared with that of the continents. It also gives the height of some well-known mountains. 

I have not yet fact checked insert B. Once I do I may make some further comment, or edit of this post.