As the heroic age of exploration draws to a close, a new book tells the story of one of the heroes involved – one who is little known and scarcely recognised today.

Eric Marshall, under the leadership of Ernest Shackleton, staggered to within 97 miles of the South Pole on the 1907 – 1909 Nimrod Expedition.  When they ultimately headed for home, mission unaccomplished, it was Marshall’s heroics that prevented the journey from becoming a death march. He subsequently survived a harrowing expedition in Dutch New Guinea but fame and fortune eluded him. Increasingly embittered, he turned his resentment towards family, friends and above all Shackleton, becoming in time Sir Ernest’s fiercest critic.

This fascinating story of Marshall’s life, by Angie Butler and Beau Riffenburgh, brings a new insight into the trials these heroic Edwardians endured, and which affected them for ever.

Marshall’s nonagenarian daughter, Dawn Beal, has read the book: ‘I feel so privileged to be the first recipient. It’s a beautiful book. It brings me good and bad memories of my father’.

Shackleton’s Critic can be bought here.

Kent Scouts ReQuest2021 Antarctic Research Project

Shackleton’s Scouts Online Presentation

A fundraising talk for this expedition (which is being supported by the James Caird Society) will be held via zoom on Sunday 6 December 2020. Further details and how to buy tickets can be found here.

The 2020 Newsletter has now been distributed to all members, hard copies to UK addresses, digitally to overseas members. We hope you all enjoyed reading the somewhat shorter than usual issue, and were not too flummoxed by the crossword. We are always grateful for comments, suggestions and contributions; this issue inspired several!

Guy Story’s discovery of an ‘unknown’ photo of Shackleton in Stanley is questioned by Robert Burton: ‘About 20 years ago I obtained a scan of a print held by Geoff Selley. It is clearly not in such good condition but on the reverse is written: Photo taken of Sir Ernest Shackleton the day after he landed in the Falklands by Mr Johansen whose boots Sir E is wearing. There are several such photos to be found, most in an album held in the Jane Cameron National Archives in Stanley.’ More of this tale will undoubtedly appear in next summer’s Newsletter and we are indebted to Guy Story for starting the discussion.

The James Caird replica article also attracted attention, including from our President. Several members of the Endurance Expedition were not awarded Polar medals, not just McNeish. We will never know exactly why this decision was made.

We do know that there are several more JC replicas than those listed. Seb Coulthard (one of the members of Tim Jarvis’s Epic Expedition) has one in his garden, and James Norton has created a beautifully detailed Caird model complete with crates, supplies and sleeping bags. We hope all these replicas (and more?) will put in an appearance in summer 2021.

And finally (so far) Jim McAdam draws attention to an error in his piece on the Stanley Museum: ‘I said that James Clark Ross visited the Falklands in 1838. This is, of course, incorrect. His expedition and great voyage only departed from the UK for the Antarctic in  1839 and overwintered in Stanley in 1842. A historian friend has kindly (and gently) pointed out the error.’

Please keep up the correspondence.

20th Shackleton Autumn School – cancelled this year

The Athy Heritage Centre’s Shackleton Autumn School is the only Polar School in Ireland and was established to commemorate the explorer in the county of his birth. It provides a forum for discussion and debate on polar exploration and the presentation of artistic works relevant to Shackleton and his time.