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The Imperial Trans–Antarctic Expedition Shackleton’s Legacy and the Power of Early Antarctic Photography, Part III

James Francis (Frank) Hurley born Sydney Australia, 15 October 1885.

Antarctic Expeditions: photographer to Douglas Mawson’s Australasian Antarctic Expedition 1911-13, 1913-14.

Hurley is hired by Shackleton as official photographer to his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Exploitation of Hurley’s moving film, glass plate and celluloid negatives will be vital to paying off expedition debts.

Image credit: Frank Hurley. Photographer: Reginald Haines. Source: State Library of Victoria, Australia

Ernest Henry Shackleton, born County Kildare, Ireland, 15 February 1874.

Antarctic Expeditions:

Third Lieutenant, The British National Antarctic Expedition 1901-03.

Expedition Leader, The British Antarctic Expedition 1907-09.

Image credit: Ernest Shackleton, front page of The Daily Mirror newspaper, 31 December 1913 © The Daily Mirror newspaper/ The British Library

Objects

To cross the Antarctic from sea to sea, securing for the British flag the honour of being the first carried across the South Polar Continent.

“The journey across is the thing that I want to do.”
“The sledge journey if successful will be the longest ever made.”
“I desperately want to have one more go.”

Ernest Shackleton

“… the ambition of Sir Ernest Shackleton is to re-establish the prestige of Great Britain in … Polar exploration”

The Times, 30 December 1913

Map of the Antarctic continent showing proposed route across. From: The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition Prospectus. Pamphlet, rgs349959

The Ships of the Expedition

The Endurance … will take the trans-continental party to the Weddell Sea.

The Aurora will land six men at the Ross Sea base. They will lay down depots on the route of the trans-continental party, and make a march south to assist that party.

Cut-away of the Endurance from Buenos Aires Herald, 23 October 1914 © Buenos Aires Herald
The Endurance – the ship which will take out the Weddell Sea party. From: The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition Prospectus. Pamphlet, rgs349959

Funding the Expedition

The Royal Geographical Society on 12 January 1914 grants Shackleton £500 towards the cost of his Expedition with another £500 were he to need it.

Letter of thanks from Ernest Shackleton to Lord Curzon, 13 January 1914. Letter, rgs213522

Winston Churchill, First Lord of the Admiralty, 23 January 1914:

“Enough life and money has been spent on this sterile quest. The Pole has already been discovered. What is the use of another expedition?”

Shackleton to Churchill, 27th February 1914:

“Dear Mr Winston Churchill,
Do please look favourably ... I am trying to do good and serious work. Death is a very little thing, and Knowledge very great … and really Regent Street holds out more dangers on a busy day than the 5 million square miles that constitute the Antarctic Continent.”

1 August 1914:

Endurance leaves West India Docks.

Germany declares war on Russia.

3 August:

Frank Worsley Commander, Endurance,

“… indicate to Sir E … desire to fight if possible … assisted Sir Ernest in drafting telegram to Admiralty offering ship men & stores for war if necessary. P.M. telegram to Sir E from Admiralty expressing appreciation of offer, but not necessary to take any Expedition men or officers.”

5 August:

Shackleton in a telegram to his wife Emily

“… King sent for me this morning spent 20 minutes then wished the expedition god speed and gave me silk union jack”.

As Endurance moves down the English Channel Worsley

“signalled to H.M.S. Diamond ‘Is War declared’ - answer ‘Yes, at midnight.’”

Members of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition

28 men live on board the Endurance. Endurance is their home and their transport: the means of entering - and escaping - the Antarctic ice.

  • Sir Ernest Shackleton, leader
  • Frank Wild, second-in-command
  • Frank Worsley, captain
  • Lionel Greenstreet, first officer
  • Hubert T. Hudson, navigator
  • Thomas Crean, second officer
  • Alfred Cheetham, third officer
  • Lewis Rickinson, first engineer
  • A. J. Kerr, second engineer
  • Dr. Alexander H. Macklin, surgeon
  • Dr. J. A. McIlroy, surgeon
  • James M. Wordie, geologist
  • Leonard D. A. Hussey, meteorologist
  • Reginald W. James, physicist
  • Robert S. Clark, biologist
  • James Francis (Frank) Hurley, official photographer
  • George E. Marston, official artist
  • T. Orde-Lees, motor expert (later storekeeper)
  • Harry McNish, carpenter
  • Charles J. Green, cook
  • Walter How, able seaman
  • Timothy McCarthy, able seaman
  • William Bakewell, able seaman
  • Thomas McLeod, able seaman
  • John Vincent, able seaman
  • Ernest Holness, fireman
  • William Stephenson, fireman
  • Perce Blackboro, stowaway (later steward)

Asked to name the basic qualities necessary to become a successful Polar explorer Shackleton listed:

“First, optimism;
second, patience;
third, physical endurance;
fourth, idealism;
fifth, and last, courage.”

Pearsons Magazine, The Making of an Explorer, August 1914

Departing Buenos Aires 26 October 1914 Shackleton heads south. Endurance carries everything needed to survive - boots, windproof clothing, fuel, food, matches, chronometers, knives, medicines …

Most of the crew on the bow "We have got everything jammed on now … Endurance rolls like anything ... a fearsome experience" Reginald James. Names in order from left to right, starting at the back: Holness, Bakewell, Stephenson, Howe, McNish, James, Wild, Worsley, Hudson, Green, Cheetham, Crean, Hussey, Greenstreet, Shackleton, Sir Daniel Gooch, Rickinson, Hurley, Clark, Wordie, Macklin, Marston, McIlroy. Missing; Lees (taking the photograph), Kerr, McLeod, McCarthy, Vincent, Blackboro (stowaway). Glass plate negative, S0000829

On Frank Wild’s 42nd birthday, 18 April 1915, after the usual cake and bottle of whisky, the average age of ‘officers and scientists’ is worked out at 33; the youngest being Kerr, 22, followed by James and Hussey, both 23, then Macklin and Wordie, 25 and Hurley, 29.

Frank Hurley, “Official photographer to the Shackleton "Endurance" expedition”

Frank Hurley, ‘official photographer to the Shackleton 'Endurance' Expedition’. Sledge loaded with his equipment. Film negative. Private Collection

Hurley takes the latest, best equipment south. As an adventurer-photographer and cinema photographer he selects for reliability and durability, choosing cine cameras, Graflex cameras, a Paget colour outfit, and light-weight Folding Pocket Kodaks for mobility. Everything required to develop and process his material in the most difficult conditions has to be remembered and ordered – developing tanks, spools, chemicals, printing paper, thermometer, scales and weights, a dark room lamp and clock. Mechanically highly competent, professionally meticulous in caring for all details of his equipment, Hurley is obsessive in his commitment to his art.

Considerable weight, and bulk, are part of the game. Hurley’s strength, agility, and daring have already been tested on his first Antarctic expedition. Now, with Shackleton, he not only is the image taker but also, along with the other ‘staff’, does ship duties.

Hurley is one of Shackleton’s chosen team to undertake the trans-continental journey. On Endurance he uses all opportunities to capture images of life on board, and in the pack ice of the Weddell Sea.

South Polar Regions

‘South Polar Regions’ published by the Royal Geographical Society, 1911. Map, rgs566389

This shows the ‘probable topography’ of the Antarctic Continent ‘as deduced from present available data’ by explorer Douglas Mawson.

No one knew the details of Antarctica’s actual shape until the 1960s when satellites orbiting 917 kilometres above Earth began sending back images.

Landsat image mosaic of Antarctica. Image courtesy USGS, NASA, National Science Foundation, and the British Antarctic Survey. Caption by Aries Keck.

The first high-resolution, three dimensional, true-colour map of Antarctica, released in 2007. More than 1,100 images from the Landsat 7 satellite were used to create it.

The Antarctic continent is one-tenth of the world’s land mass. It is the fifth largest continent, half as big again as the United States of America and fifty-six times bigger than the United Kingdom.

The Antarctic pack ice is reaching further north than anyone can remember.

Shackleton waits in South Georgia until early December 1914.

Then, summer well underway, 'Endurance' leaves for the Weddell Sea.

“I gave him a hand to lug a whole plate camera & 40 lbs of gear & accoutrements & by gum we had some lovely places to go up, like a fly crawling up a wall … he did get some beauties though from the top”.

Lionel Greenstreet in a letter, 17 November 1914

Image credit: Mt. Paget and the Allardyce Range from Mt. Duse, South Georgia. Glass plate negatives, S0010532 & S0000145

The deck of the Endurance on the outward journey. Celluloid negative, S0000172
“We took from South Georgia about a ton of whale meat, food for the dogs; big chunks were hanging in the rigging out of reach but not out of sight & as the ship rolled & pitched they watched it with wolfish eyes …”

Lewis Rickinson

“The pack ice is always on the move, opening & closing …”

James

Image credit: Endurance enters the pack ice. Print, S0000830

New Year’s Day, 1915. Mast of the Endurance with the wake of the ship through a field of young ice. Glass plate negative, S0011665

Ice barring all progress. Endurance in the ice in full sail. Celluloid negative, S0000156
“14 January 1915 … Tied up … to the floe ice … The day … magnificent … extremely busy with the camera & cinema & exposed 12 ½ plates & 200 feet Cine film”

Frank Hurley

During the month’s wait in South Georgia, Hurley photographs and films the austere beauty of the island’s mountains, glaciers and fjords.

Shackleton gets extra food, winter clothing and coal from the whaling stations in South Georgia. The unusually severe conditions rule out any possibility of crossing the continent this season.

“The space between the wardroom & the after cabin … has … been filled up with coal, & the only way into the wardroom is down a ladder in a hole excavated in the coal just in front of the door … All being well you should see us back in the spring of 1916.”

Reginald James in a letter home, 11 November 1914.

“Left South Georgia on December 5th … the last link with civilization. On the third day we came into pack ice …”

James

‘Entering the Polar Sea’, 11 December 1914. On the bow of the Endurance. Glass plate negative, S0000828
“1 January 1915 … Hurley to bed, Hurley to rise … New Year resolutions are rife, but I have broken mine already … at noon today we covered 120 miles … our record since entering the pack … 10 January. A notable day! First glimpse of … Land.”

Hurley

But Shackleton, ‘The Boss’, wants to get even further south to set up his base, before finding a place to bring his sledging party, scientists and dog teams ashore.

“6 January … we were called out of bunk … at 11.00 pm … going on deck we discovered we were in the midst of an impenetrable field of heavy pressure ice. During the day the dogs were taken for a run on the large floe … the first they have had for nearly a month.”

Hurley

“8 January … reaching our base is far harder than anyone … expected”

Thomas Orde-Lees

Image credit: Dogs and men on ice, with Endurance behind. Glass plate negative, S0000955

12 January 1915.

“we came across new land … photograph was taken at midnight - the sun is almost as strong … as at mid-day during the summer months.”

Rickinson

Image credit: Glass plate negative, S0026041

“… here we are with the land in sight … absolutely helpless.” Hurley

“17 January … compulsorily ‘Hove to’ … huge grey white bergs, rough seas and lowering clouds … moody Antarctica.”

Hurley

“18th … floes … very thick and heavy … we lie to for a while to see if the pack opens … 19th … a damned blankety uninteresting day … no water in sight”

Worsley

“7 February … still prisoners …”

Lees

14 February. At midnight Shackleton calls a halt to a tremendous effort to cut the ship free from thick ice. The 15th, Shackleton’s 41st birthday, Endurance - so close to where they hoped to land - is acknowledged to be trapped.

“a pretty despondent crowd”

James Wordie

Frank Hurley filming from the mast of the Endurance. Glass plate negative, S0000154
“24 January … Hurley, the irrepressible … perched like a dicky bird on the top sail yard arm is taking a colour photo of ship and ice …”

Worsley

Endurance in full sail, in the ice. Glass plate negative, S0000141
“25 January … 3 hours unsuccessfully try to force ship … with all sails on (& engines) … Hurley goes on floe & takes a picture of ship & floe.”

Worsley

“… not one on board who was not bitterly disappointed”

Wordie

“… all hope is not yet given up of breaking free …” Hurley

“The Boss took … defeat very well … was in the best of spirits today and gave orders for a proper football match to take place this afternoon.”

Wordie

“… to be on the safe side we are now beginning to lay in a stock of seal meat for the winter for kitchen & the dogs.”

Hurley

“Attempt being made to cut the Endurance from the grip of the ice”. Glass plate negative, S0000973

16 February 1915, Football match on the ice. Glass plate negative, S0000151

18 February 1915, Skinning seals on the floe. Glass plate negative, S0026023
“14 February … a decisive effort … made to free the ship …
15 February … All hands again attack the ice … till … it is reluctantly determined … the … ice is unworkable …”

Hurley

The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition is the third part of a series of online exhibitions drawing on content from the Society’s exhibition Shackleton’s Legacy and the Power of Early Antarctic Photography, displayed in the Society’s Pavilion from 7 February to 4 May 2022.

Exhibition guest curated by Meredith Hooper, with supporting contributions from Alasdair MacLeod and Jools Cole. Digital exhibition created by Hania Sosnowska.

About the curator

Meredith Hooper is a lecturer, historian, Antarctic expert and full time writer of non-fiction and fiction for children and adults.

She grew up in Australia and after graduating in history from the University of Adelaide, she came to the UK to do a postgraduate history degree at Oxford.

Meredith was selected by the Australian Antarctic Division to visit Antarctica as a writer in 1994 and was also selected by the US National Science Foundation to visit Antarctica as a writer in 1998-1999 and 2001-2002, on their Antarctica Artists Writers Program. As well as being shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal, her work has appeared on TES Information Book and Australian Children’s Book of the Year shortlists.

Meredith researched, wrote and curated the exhibition The enduring eye: the Antarctic legacy of Sir Ernest Shackleton and Frank Hurley from original source material in the UK, Australia and New Zealand, whilst also drawing on information provided by descendants of some of the 28 men on the expedition. The original exhibition, now incorporated within Shackleton’s legacy, toured the UK from 2015-2018 and was also shown at the Bowers Museum, California, from 2017- 2018.

A selection of the Society's images featured in this online exhibition can be purchased from the RGS Print Store.

For more information on how to access and use the Society's Collections please visit our website.

Text © Meredith Hooper

Images © Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) unless stated otherwise

Credits and acknowledgements

The Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) would like to thank the following organisations and individuals:

Exhibition curators: Meredith Hooper and Dr Jan Piggott

Physical exhibition designers: Sarner International Limited

Sponsored by:

The Shackleton Company | The James Caird Society | The Folio Society | South Georgia Association | Devon and Cornwall Polar Society

Supported by:

The United Kingdom Antarctic Heritage Trust | Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 | British Antarctic Territory | Government of South Georgia & the South Sandwich Islands | Rolex (for its support for the Society's Picture Library and contribution towards conservation of its Collections) | The National Heritage Lottery Fund

The Hon. Alexandra Shackleton, FRGS | Mr Jan Chojecki | Dr Jan Faull | Mr John James | The late Mr Henry Worsley, FRGS

Associated Newspapers Limited | Bridgeman Images | British Antarctic Survey | The British Film Institute | The British Library | Buenos Aires Herald | Christie’s | The Daily Mirror | Dulwich College | Illustrated London News/Mary Evans | Museum of London | The Royal Albert Hall | Scott Polar Research Institute | State Library, New South Wales, Australia | State Library, Victoria, Australia | Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand | USGS, NASA, National Science Foundation