Exhibition tells story of amazing feat of endurance in frozen seas
ONE HUNDRED years on they remain one of the greatest photographic records of human endurance.
Newly digitised images capturing the last days of Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance, and the crew’s subsequent struggle to stay alive, are on show at Hull’s Maritime Museum.
Shackleton had planned to cross Antarctica from coast to coast, picking up supplies left by a second team as he neared the other side.
But after a six-day gale in January 1915, the Norwegianbuilt ship became trapped in ice in the Weddell Sea.
For the next 10 months she drifted with the ice, with exhibition photographer Frank Hurley capturing their daily lives – playing football matches on the ice, chess on the long dark winter days and a midwinter dinner to celebrate the shortest day of the year in a cabin adorned with UK, Australian and New Zealand flags.
Onboard were five men from Hull – fourth officer Alfred Cheetham, the man considered to have the most Antarctic experience, firemen William Stephenson and Ernest Holness, and “sooty faced cook” Charles Green as well as John Vincent, one of five men chosen for a hazardous open boat journey to try to get help, after the Endurance finally succumbed to the ice.
The free exhibition, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund, also features artefacts from the intrepid journey – including Vincent’s boots – and a narrative comprising logs and diaries of Shackleton and his crew.
His descendant Hayley Cropp, a volunteer with Hull Museums, said: “Our family has a photograph of John wearing his polar boots and it’s been fantastic to see them up close.
“I’ve always had an interest in family history and this has been a great opportunity to get closer to my ancestor and to imagine what he must have gone through on that expedition.”
is at Hull Maritime Museum until June 3.