Ernest Shackleton

Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer (1874-1922)

Ernest Shackleton was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. He and his team achieved several remarkable feats, including setting new Farthest South records and climbing Mount Erebus. Shackleton’s most famous exploit was the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, where his ship Endurance was trapped and sank in the Weddell Sea, but he and his crew managed to reach safety after an epic journey.

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Family Info

Siblings

Kathleen Shackleton

Francis Richard Shackleton

Spouses

Emily Shackleton

Children

Edward Shackleton, Baron Shackleton

Raymond Shackleton

Cecily Jane Swinford Shackleton

About the Ernest Shackleton

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic. He was one of the principal figures of the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.

Born in Kilkea, County Kildare, Ireland, Shackleton and his Anglo-Irish family moved to Sydenham in suburban south London when he was ten. Shackleton’s first experience of the polar regions was as third officer on Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s Discovery Expedition of 1901-1904, from which he was sent home early on health grounds, after he and his companions Scott and Edward Adrian Wilson set a new southern record by marching to latitude 82degS. During the Nimrod Expedition of 1907-1909, he and three companions established a new record Farthest South latitude of 88deg23′ S, only 97 geographical milesfrom the South Pole, the largest advance to the pole in exploration history. Also, members of his team climbed Mount Erebus, the most active Antarctic volcano. On returning home, Shackleton was knighted for his achievements by King Edward VII.

After the race to the South Pole ended in December 1911, with Roald Amundsen’s conquest, Shackleton turned his attention to the crossing of Antarctica from sea to sea, via the pole. To this end, he made preparations for what became the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-1917. The expedition was struck by disaster when its ship, Endurance, became trapped in pack ice and finally sank in the Weddell Sea off Antarctica on 21 November 1915. The crew escaped by camping on the sea ice until it disintegrated, then by launching the lifeboats to reach Elephant Island and ultimately the South Atlantic island of South Georgia, enduring a stormy ocean voyage of 720 nautical milesin Shackleton’s most famous exploit. He returned to the Antarctic with the Shackleton-Rowett Expedition in 1921 but died of a heart attack while his ship was moored in South Georgia. At his wife’s request, he remained on the island and was buried in Grytviken cemetery. The wreck of Endurance was discovered just over a century after Shackleton’s death.

Away from his expeditions, Shackleton’s life was generally restless and unfulfilled. In his search for rapid pathways to wealth and security, he launched business ventures which failed to prosper, and he died heavily in debt. Upon 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. Later in the 20th century, Shackleton was “rediscovered”, and he became a role model for leadership in extreme circumstances. In his 1956 address to the British Science Association, one of Shackleton’s contemporaries, Sir Raymond Priestley, said: “Scott for scientific method, Amundsen for speed and efficiency[,] but[,] when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton”, paraphrasing what Apsley Cherry-Garrard had written in a preface to his 1922 memoir The Worst Journey in the World. In 2002, Shackleton was voted eleventh in a BBC poll of the 100 Greatest Britons.

Frequently Asked Questions

Ernest Shackleton was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who led three British expeditions to the Antarctic during the early 20th century, a period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.

Shackleton and his team set new Farthest South records, climbed Mount Erebus (the most active Antarctic volcano), and attempted to cross Antarctica from sea to sea via the South Pole, which ended in disaster when his ship Endurance became trapped and sank in the Weddell Sea.

After the Endurance sank, Shackleton and his crew escaped by camping on the sea ice until it disintegrated, then launching the lifeboats to reach Elephant Island and ultimately the South Atlantic island of South Georgia, enduring a stormy ocean voyage of 720 nautical miles in one of Shackleton’s most famous exploits.

Shackleton’s leadership and his crew’s survival in the face of disaster has made him a role model for leadership in extreme circumstances, and he was later ,rediscovered, and voted the 11th Greatest Briton in a 2002 BBC poll.

At his wife’s request, Shackleton was buried in Grytviken cemetery on the South Georgia island after he died of a heart attack while his ship was moored there during the Shackleton–Rowett Expedition in 1921.

Shackleton’s expeditions to the Antarctic during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, including his famous Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, have cemented his legacy as one of the principal figures of that era and a role model for leadership in extreme circumstances.

Ernest Shackleton was born on February 15, 1874 in Kilkea, County Kildare, Ireland.

9 Quotes by Ernest Shackleton

  1. 1.

    Superhuman effort isn’t worth a damn unless it achieves results.

    Ernest Shackleton

    Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer (1874-1922)

  2. 2.

    I called to the other men that the sky was clearing, and then a moment later I realized that what I had seen was not a rift in the clouds but the white crest of an enormous wave.

    Ernest Shackleton

    Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer (1874-1922)

  3. 3.

    We had seen God in His splendors, heard the text that Nature renders. We had reached the naked soul of man.

    Ernest Shackleton

    Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer (1874-1922)

  4. 4.

    If I had not some strength of will I would make a first class drunkard.

    Ernest Shackleton

    Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer (1874-1922)

  5. 5.

    I seemed to vow to myself that some day I would go to the region of ice and snow and go on and on till I came to one of the poles of the earth, the end of the axis upon which this great round ball turns.

    Ernest Shackleton

    Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer (1874-1922)

  6. 6.

    Now my eyes are turned from the South to the North, and I want to lead one more Expedition. This will be the last… to the North Pole.

    Ernest Shackleton

    Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer (1874-1922)

  7. 7.

    Difficulties are just things to overcome, after all.

    Ernest Shackleton

    Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer (1874-1922)

  8. 8.

    The noise resembles the roar of heavy, distant surf. Standing on the stirring ice one can imagine it is disturbed by the breathing and tossing of a mighty giant below.

    Ernest Shackleton

    Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer (1874-1922)

  9. 9.

    After months of want and hunger, we suddenly found ourselves able to have meals fit for the gods, and with appetites the gods might have envied.

    Ernest Shackleton

    Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer (1874-1922)