Ernest Henry Shackleton 1874 – 1922

Ernest Henry Shackleton CVO OBE, 1874 – 1922 was an Anglo Irish explorer who was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.

Shackleton’s father was a homeopath (Roland Huntford, Shackleton, (Atheneum, 1986). Page 11), and Shackleton’s Antarctic expedition of 1914 to 1916 on the Endurance, and Shackleton’s open boat the James Caird, was funded by James Key Caird 1st Baronet (the chief sponsor), (with other contributions from Janet Stancomb Wills, the niece of Walter Melville Wills, Frank Dudley Docker and the British Government),

Shackleton was knighted by Edward VII on his return home.

His first experience of the polar regions was as third officer on Captain Scott’s Discovery Expedition, 1901–04, from which he was sent home early on health grounds.

Determined to make amends for this perceived personal failure, he returned to Antarctica in 1907 as leader of the Nimrod Expedition.

In January 1909 he and three companions made a southern march which established a record Farthest South latitude at 88°23’S, 97 geographical miles (114 statute miles, 190 km) from the South Pole, by far the closest convergence in exploration history up to that time. For this achievement, Shackleton was knighted by Edward VII on his return home.

After the race to the South Pole ended in 1912 with Roald Amundsen’s conquest, Shackleton turned his attention to what he said was the one remaining great object of Antarctic journeying - the crossing of the continent from sea to sea, via the pole.

To this end he made preparations for what became the Imperial Trans Antarctic Expedition, 1914–17. Disaster struck this expedition when its ship, Endurance, was trapped in pack ice and slowly crushed, before the shore parties could be landed. There followed a sequence of exploits, and an ultimate escape with no lives lost, that would eventually assure Shackleton’s heroic status, although this was not immediately evident.

In 1921 he went back to the Antarctic with the Shackleton Rowett Expedition, intending to carry out a programme of scientific and survey activities. Before the expedition could begin this work Shackleton died of a heart attack while his ship, Quest, was moored in South Georgia. At his wife’s request he was buried there.

Away from his expeditions, Shackleton’s life was generally restless and unfulfilled. In his search for rapid pathways to wealth and security he launched many business ventures and other money making schemes, none of which prospered.

His financial affairs were generally muddled; when he died, he owed over £40,000 (more than £1.5 million in 2008 terms).

On his death he was lauded in the press, but was thereafter largely forgotten, while the heroic reputation of his rival Scott was sustained for many decades.

At the end of the 20th century Shackleton was “rediscovered”,and rapidly became a cult figure, a role model for leadership as one who, in extreme circumstances, kept his team together to accomplish a survival story which polar historian Stephanie Barczewski describes as “incredible”.

Of interest:

Frank Shackleton, the brother of Ernest Henry Shackleton, was a close friend of John George Edward Henry Douglas Sutherland Campbell 9th Duke of Argyll, who laid the Cornerstone of the Henry Tyler Wing of the London Homeopathic Hospital on 30.6.1909,

Henry Shackleton BA MD Dublin, MRCSE England, father of Ernest Henry Shackleton, was a British orthodox physician who converted to homeopathy, to become a physician at the London Homeopathic Hospital, and a member of the British Homeopathic Society,

Henry Shackleton was a colleague of John Galley Blackley, Thomas Skinner, and many others.

Henry Shackleton practiced at 12, West Hill, Sydenham,

Henry Shackleton submited cases (including A case of Multiple Sarcoma) and articles to various homeopathic publications,