Through the summer, much of his spare time was spent overseeing the progress of O.H.M.S. He managed to obtain sufficient subscribers for it to be printed in July. To his great pleasure, a specially bound copy was presented to Queen Victoria. But even more important was the one given to Emily, inscribed 'E. to E. July 1900. The First Fruits'. There is little doubt that Shackleton saw this as the first instalment, albeit a small one, of what he could offer Emily and of the proof of his future prospects, which Mr Dorman demanded.
It is also clear that by this time Shackleton had not only given thought to the life of an explorer, but to participation on a specific expedition. He had recently become a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and had shown considerable interest in an expedition to the Antarctic being jointly planned by the RGS and the Royal Society.
There have been varying opinions about exactly why Shackleton made a sudden change of career in applying for the British National Antarctic Expedition. There can be little doubt that his desire for fame and fortune played a major role. But there was more. One of his UnionCastle colleagues later stated:
'he was attracted by the opportunity of breaking away from the monotony of method and routine - from an existence which might eventually strangle his individuality. He saw himself so slowly progressing to the command of a liner that his spirit rebelled at the thought of his best years of his life and virility passing away in weary waiting.'
This is insightful, because Shackleton required a spiritual freedom greater than most. He was at heart a nomad, one of a group of nineteenth-century Britons for whom travel to the white spaces on the map - the jungles of Africa, the deserts of Arabia, or the frozen wastes of the polar regions - seemed the sole cure for an innate wanderlust, an uneasy hunger for change, an overmastering restlessness. He was forever on the surface wishing to be at home, yet never at peace until he was away.
But even more fundamental than appeasing his appetite for the unknown was the challenge from such an environment. Throughout his life Shackleton was driven by the need to test himself - which his position with Union-Castle no longer satisfied. To him, the struggle was an end of its own; he sought not just the fulfilment of challenge but the fight to accomplish it.
Ironically, as 1900 grew old, the greatest competition confronting Shackleton was not that of a faraway land but of winning Emily. Exploration could - and would - give direction to many aspects of his life, but he initially followed that course in order to gain her. Without a doubt, she was the catalyst for his entry into that world. As their daughter Cecily commented:
he was going to lay the world at her feet, and be worthy of this very lovely . . . woman, with brilliant blue eyes and wonderful smile . . . He wanted to pour something out round her feet and say 'there you are you see, you've married a man who's making his own way in life and I've brought you back the goods'.
Believing it was the road to Emily, on 13 September Shackleton volunteered for the British National Antarctic Expedition. By the time he sailed to Cape Town in Union-Castle's Gaika in October he had not received an official answer to his application, but he was ever ready with a contingency plan. So before he left again for the Cape on Carisbrook Castle at the beginning of January 1901, he had decided he would use military tactics after all, and unveil his secret weapon.
5
THE MAKING OF THE BRITISH
NATIONAL ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION
The twenty-first century is far removed from the era of Victoria. Today, science is so specialised it is difficult for the average person to understand; generals master news conferences rather than battlefield strategy, and 'explorers' are adventurers backed by sophisticated technology. However, a hundred and more years ago, men in such professions were larger-than-life figures, heroes with a level of fame rarely accorded now to those who are not athletes or pop musicians, and who received the respect of a range of admirers as diverse as members of the House of Lords and readers of the halfpenny press. As the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth, Joseph Dalton Hooker, Lord Wolseley, Henry Morton Stanley and Francis Galton were still alive. As had been its preceding generations, late-Victorian society was populated by a race of giants.
One of the places where men such as these could mingle and discuss the unveiling of new lands and faraway events was a four-storey building on the corner of Saville Row and Vigo Street in Bloomsbury, which, since 1871, had been the home of the Royal Geographical Society. Founded in 1830 after a brief incarnation as a dining club, the RGS had become a focal point for exploration as well as for the scientific, ethnographic, and economic enquiry that accompanied it. Not only did the Society have the best travel library in the world, and the most impressive collections of maps and charts, it published records of new discoveries.
Even more important was the role the RGS played in encouraging and sponsoring exploration. During its first three-quarters of a century, there were three men who, through their positions within the Society, their outside prominence, and their single-mindedness, became the most significant individuals backing exploration in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
The first was Sir John Barrow, the chairman of the Council of the Society, whose actual power base was his post as the Second Secretary of the Admiralty. For thirty years he was the force behind expeditions to areas as widely divergent as West Africa and the high Arctic. He also sent out a remarkable effort under Sir James Clark Ross from 1839 to 1843, on which Ross proved that the ice pack surrounding much of the Antarctic could be navigated, and that beyond it was a huge sea. Ross not only established a new record for the farthest south, 78°io', but at the base of this sea discovered an island with two volcanoes that he named after his ships, Mount Erebus and Mount Terror. He then found one of the Earth's most amazing geographical features, the immense expanse of ice that came to be known as the Great Ice Barrier and that today is named the Ross Ice Shelf.
Barrow's legacy eventually passed on to Sir Roderick Murchison, one of the most renowned theoretical geologists in the world, who served a record sixteen years as president of the RGS. It was Murchison who transformed the Society into a key national institution, and he sponsored and helped fund expeditions in virtually all corners of the world.
But as someone able to set forces in motion, and to mobilise support or manipulate opinion, Barrow and Murchison were surpassed by the third of these men - one of the most formidable and dynamic personalities of exploration history, the cantankerous, devious, heavily bewhiskered Sir Clements Markham. Born (without the whiskers) in the year the RGS was founded, Markham joined the Royal Navy at fourteen, and six years later participated in a search for Sir John Franklin's missing expedition in the vast, unexplored Canadian archipelago. The search expedition failed in its primary goals, but Markham was greatly impressed by the spirit aboard ship and on the sledging parties, and by the winter programme of education and entertainment. Shortly thereafter, he resigned from the Royal Navy, but there is no doubt that his experiences had permanently shaped his beliefs regarding how a polar expedition ought to be conducted.
Markham later became a figure of consequence at the India Office, and in 1863 he was named honorary secretary at the RGS. Three decades on, he was appointed president of the Society after three other individuals had declined the offer. He immediately launched a cam paign for the revival of British Antarctic exploration, which had lapsed after Ross' expedition.
Markham had previously been one of the key figures in a similar effort to revive British exploration in the Arctic. However, when that expedition had become a reality, it had been handicapped by a number of old, backward-looking Arctic veterans on the organising committees - Markham among them - who had ensured that it followed slavishly the use of outdated equipment and techniques from the Franklin search expeditions, helping lead to a disastrous conclusion. It was as if nothing had been learned in the previous decades; unfortunately, little more would be learned in the following ones.
Never the less, with the aid of John M
urray, Britain's foremost academic authority on the polar regions, Markham now made increasingly persistent and urgent efforts to galvanise interest in an Antarctic expedition.
Two years later, on the evening after Shackleton returned from his first voyage on Monmouthshire, Markham presided over the opening of the Sixth International Geographical Congress in London. The proceedings included a day devoted to polar exploration and a paper by Carsten Borchgrevink, who put forward his claim to be the first man ever to set foot on the Antarctic continent. To Markham's delight, a resolution was passed stating that
the exploration of the Antarctic Regions is the greatest piece of geographical exploration still to be undertaken. That, in view of the additions to knowledge in almost every branch of science which would result from such a scientific exploration, the Congress recommends that the scientific societies throughout the world should urge, in whatever way seems to them most effective, that this work should be undertaken before the close of the century.
After the Congress, Markham pressed even more actively for British involvement. His goal remained the same: that any expedition be under the auspices of the Royal Navy. In contacting the Royal Society, the Admiralty and the Prime Minister, Markham - caught hopelessly in a romantic past that had never actually existed - emphasised that naval officers would benefit enormously from such participation. Polar exploration would serve, he wrote, as 'a school for our future Nelsons, and as affording the best opportunities for distinction to young naval officers in times of peace'.
But Markham's appeals for recognition, funding and the loan of officers were time and again rebuffed, so in 1897 the RGS established its own independent expedition, committing £5,000 for such a purpose. Later that year the Royal Society joined in backing the undertaking, but financial progress remained slow, despite a contribution of £5,000 from Alfred Harmsworth, who had previously sent the Jackson-Harmsworth expedition to the Arctic.
In August 1897, a Belgian expedition left for the south, helping raise the profile of Markham's drive and generating considerable popular interest in the Antarctic. Any advantages, however, were soon offset by the dispatch of another expedition, this one emphasising its British origins. After a couple of years of ineffective efforts, the Anglo-Norwegian Borchgrevink had overnight raised enough money for an expedition. Aware of the economic benefits accrued by other newspaper owners who sponsored exploration, George Newnes had offered Borchgrevink £40,000. Newnes' largesse completely funded the expedition, including the purchase and outfitting of a ship that was renamed Southern Cross. Borchgrevink and his primarily Norwegian crew departed for the south in August 1898. Markham was incensed that money he felt should have been applied to his expedition should go to a 'foreigner' whom he considered 'unfit'. In a letter to the librarian of the RGS, Hugh Robert Mill, he described Borchgrevink as stupid but very cunning and unprincipled. For the rest of his life Markham made vitriolic attacks on the explorer whenever given the opportunity.
Meanwhile, Markham's efforts had made little progress. But in March 1899, prospects dramatically changed when Llewellyn Long-staff, a successful businessman and long-term Fellow of the RGS, offered £25,000 to launch the project. Other important prerequisites for the expedition quickly fell into place, and the RGS and Royal Society began developing plans for a purpose-built ship. In June a deputation from the societies made a plea to Arthur Balfour - Salisbury's nephew, the First Lord of the Treasury and effectively deputy Prime Minister - who responded positively. With his support, it was only three weeks later that the government extended an offer of £45,000 on the condition that it be matched by private subscriptions. The British National Antarctic Expedition had become a reality.
The financial security of Markham's expedition did not end the crossing of political swords, however. He and the RGS were now firmly in a partnership with the Royal Society, and it was not long before the two organisations found that their goals and plans for the expedition were decidedly different. A variety of joint committees were formed, the RGS representatives of which tended to believe that geographical discovery was the primary objective of the expedition, while those from the Royal Society felt its purpose was to engage in scientific research.
This difference did not become problematic until the first half of 1900, when two appointments set the scene for dissension over the issue of leadership. Markham still envisioned the expedition as primarily a Royal Navy enterprise, with a small civilian scientific party under the command of the ship's captain. However, on German and Swedish expeditions then being planned, scientists - Erich von Drygalski and Otto Nordenskjold respectively - were to be in command. In February, this pattern seemed to be followed when the distinguished geologist John W. Gregory was appointed director of the scientific staff. Gregory was eminently well qualified, not only as a scientist but an explorer. In 1892 he had made a pioneering study of the Great Rift Valley and the glaciers of Mount Kenya, and several years later had joined Sir Martin Conway on the first crossing of Spitsbergen.
However, Markham had other ideas. These centred on the torpedo lieutenant of HMS Majestic, Robert Falcon Scott. Scott had first come to Markham's attention in 1887, when, as a midshipman, he had won a sailing race that Markham had been watching. A dozen years later, Scott applied to command the Antarctic expedition, and it is clear that Markham supported him as early as July 1899. In April 1900, after months of behind-the-scenes manoeuvring by Markham, the Admiralty announced that Scott and Lieutenant Charles Royds would be released from duty in August in order to become commander and executive officer. Howls of protest came from members of the Royal Society, but Scott's nomination was ultimately approved in May.
That same month, Albert Armitage was appointed second-in-command. A merchant marine officer then employed by the P&O Company, Armitage had been the deputy commander on the Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition, during which he had established excellent credentials as both an ice-navigator and a polar traveller. As a former recipient of the Murchison Medal from the RGS, he had already met Markham, and had also been warmly recommended by Harmsworth.
While construction of the ship Discovery proceeded in Dundee, Scott took charge of preparations for the expedition, although he initially had little active help, as neither Royds nor Armitage was immediately available. Even two shipmates coming from Majestic were unable to join him in London: Michael Barne, the second officer, would not return from the China station until the Boxer Rebellion was suppressed, and Reginald Skelton, the engineer, went to Dundee to oversee the installation of the ship's machinery.
But it was the return of an expedition member, rather than his absence, that set off a row that threatened the very existence of the venture. In December 1900, Gregory came back from Australia - he had been appointed professor of geology at the University of Melbourne - and expressed strong reservations about the draft instructions for the expedition, which placed the scientific staff under the command of Scott. The politely suppressed differences between the RGS and the Royal Society exploded as representatives of the latter made it clear they were appalled that science had been made subservient to a naval officer who 'has had no experience in either Arctic or Antarctic seas. . . has not as yet the slightest reputation as a naturalist, a geologist, or an investigator of glacial problems. . . and is without experience in the branches of science.'
Gregory also expressed fears about Scott's preparations, but Markham was intractable about the purpose of the expedition - and it was not scientific study. 'These mud larkers,' he had written derogatorily about the members of the Royal Society as early as the summer of 1899, 'coolly ask us to turn our expedition into a cruise for their purposes.'
The ensuing battles between the societies eventually began to prove too much for Markham, who was 'quite exhausted'. Late in the contest, however, he convinced Sir George Goldie, another inveterate intriguer who was a member of both the RGS and the Royal Society, to enter the fray on his side. Markham correctly assessed that Goldie, the power behind the Royal Niger C
ompany, 'would turn the RS officials round his finger with perfect ease'. Within a brief period 'the Pilot', as Markham called him for his manoeuvring, led an offensive that resulted in Gregory's resignation.
Hugh Robert Mill later indicated that with Gregory's departure, the emphasis of the expedition shifted irretrievably from serious research to adventure. But it was not only to Markham that this was a most welcome development. Even as the struggle reached its climax, the fifth and final officer of Discovery was appointed - and Ernest Shackleton was more interested in adventure than science.
In the spring of 1900, while Markham pestered the Admiralty to confirm Scott as commander, Shackleton made his second voyage in Tintagel Castle and pulled together the snippets that would form O.H.M.S. Shackleton did not know it, but of those aboard, the man who would play the most significant role in his life, albeit indirectly, was a young lieutenant from the 2nd East Surrey Regiment by the name of Cedric Longstaff. It was a year before that Longstaff's father had made Markham's dream possible, when he had donated £25,000 to the RGS.
On the surface, Shackleton did not have overwhelming reasons to be considered officer material for the British National Antarctic Expedition. He had more experience of sail than the Royal Navy officers, which could be important, since, to save coal, it was intended that Discovery make ample use of the wind. He was also a Fellow of the RGS. But these likely would have counted for little had he not also had the patronage of someone to whom Markham felt deeply indebted.
Throughout his life, whenever Shackleton faced a challenge, he took it on with an energy that allowed him to overcome enormous odds. His goal of serving on Discovery was no different. While in England between voyages, he took time to visit Cedric Longstaff's father. Llewellyn Longstaff was no doubt delighted to speak to anyone who had spent time with his son. It can also be assumed that Shackleton was at his most charming - and few could withstand his spell. The result was that Longstaff willingly took up Shackleton's cause when the younger man told him he wished to participate in the expedition that owed so much to Longstaff's munificence.
Shackleton’s Forgotten Expedition Page 8