Sir Ernest Shackleton
Date of Birth: February 15, 1874
Place of Birth: County Kildare, Ireland
Family background:
Shackleton was born at Kilkea House, County Kildare, Ireland in 1874, and served as a merchant marine officer, becoming a captain in the Royal Naval Reserve. He went to school at Dulwich College from 1887 to 1890. In 1904 he finally married the girl of his dreams, Emily Dorman. They had three children — Raymond, Cecily and Edward (Eddie).
Shackleton's first voyage was with Captain Robert Falcon Scott and Edward Wilson (on the British National Antarctic Discovery Expedition 1901-1904), in which they undertook a sledge journey over the Ross Ice Shelf to a latitude of 82° 16' 33 S (the South Pole is at 90°).
Major work:
In 1907-1909, Shackleton led the British Antarctic (Nimrod) Expedition. Shackleton's sleigh expedition went within 97 miles (156 km) of the South Pole. The primary and stated goal was to reach the South Pole. The expedition is also called the Nimrod Expedition after its ship, and the "Farthest South" expedition. During this expedition, the Victoria Land Plateau was claimed for Britain. Shackleton was knighted upon his return. For three years he was able to bask in the glory of being "the man who reached furthest to the south."
Shackleton led the British Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-16), which planned to cross Antarctica from the Weddell Sea to McMurdo Sound (2,000 mi = 3,200 km), but instead drifted at sea for 10 months - and then their ship Endurance was crushed by pack ice in 1915. The crew escaped to Elephant Island (in the South Shetland Islands); Shackleton and a few others went over 800 miles for help in a life boat, and eventually rescued the others.
In 1921, Shackleton set out on another Antarctic expedition. Its purpose was to go around the Antarctic continent by sea, but it was derailed when Shackleton died of a heart attack on board his ship, the Quest, while anchored off South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands on January 5, 1922.
Achievement:
Shackleton was involved in many expeditions attempting to reach the South Pole.
Sir Ernest Shackleton is doubtless best known for leading a thousand mile open boat journey across the treacherous Southern Ocean after losing his ship to the crushing ice floes of the Weddell Sea.
