Among the treasures of the Royal Geographical Society’s 2 cardinal beardown collections are implicit 150 solid and celluloid negatives: the enactment of Frank Hurley, authoritative lensman to Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-1917. These fantastic images person an value for maine beyond their quality and evocative power, due to the fact that it was done them that I learned the communicative of my grandfather’s expedition aboard the Endurance.
I bash not retrieve my begetter Eddie, Shackleton’s youngest child, ever sitting maine down and telling maine astir his father. Indeed, helium hardly knew him, being lone 10 years aged erstwhile Ernest died of a bosom onslaught connected January 5, 1922, during the Shackleton-Rowett Quest expedition.
I learned the communicative by asking astir the Hurley photographs connected the walls. They were sometimes confusing for a child: “Why was it acheronian erstwhile it was not night?” and “Why did each the men person beards?” I was peculiarly intrigued by 1 photograph showing Endurance successful the ice, reduced to a skeleton, and the sled dogs sitting astir her. I would ask, “What happened to the dogs?” The grownups would ne'er springiness maine a consecutive answer, and it was not until years aboriginal that I was deemed aged capable to cognize the truth, that arsenic connected astir expeditions of the era, the men killed and ate the dogs erstwhile nutrient ran short.
Over the adjacent fewer days, Hurley and different unit members returned to the wreck of the Endurance to salvage supplies. Diving into the icy water, Hurley rescued overmuch of his photographic equipment, including his solid sheet negatives and cinematograph film. ©Royal Geographical Society.
It was not lone children who were sometimes confused by a Hurley image. I retrieve 1 visitant spending ages contemplating a presumption of rocky, snow-covered peaks, brooding implicit a magnificent glacier tumbling into a ample fjord, afloat of immense blocks of floating ice. Eventually, our visitant announced triumphantly, “I cognize wherever that is! It is Lulworth Cove!” Hereafter, it was known arsenic Lulworth Cove successful the family. In fact, it was South Georgia.
Hurley’s cine movie South, primitively released successful 1919 arsenic In the Grip of the Polar Pack-Ice, was besides of value for me, since it was the archetypal clip I saw my gramps moving and smiling. The movie shows astonishing images of the decease of the Endurance. Hurley acceptable cameras astir her and showed her masts crashing down.
“…During the greeting spell walking with Wild. We sojourn a neighboring cavern successful the glacier which was adorned with a magnificence of icicles. Fine shawlike stalactites covered the walls and the extortion was adorned with curiously carved and footlike stalactites.” –Frank Hurley ©Royal Geographical Society
How did my gramps travel to prime Frank Hurley to photograph the Endurance expedition? Hurley had been the authoritative lensman connected Douglas Mawson’s Australasian Antarctic Expedition of 1911-1913. Shackleton saw Hurley’s 1913 documentary movie Life successful the Antarctic and decided to enlistee him. Departure day was nigh but Hurley—all unaware—was heavy successful the Australian bush. He frankincense became astir surely the lone polar lensman to beryllium retrieved by an Aboriginal tracker.
Hurley was a superb photographer, not lone for his imaginativeness but for his commitment. He would prevarication down successful beforehand of the moving vessel and ascent precocious successful the mast, burdened with precise dense camera equipment. Results were all. Hurley regarded himself arsenic chiefly an creator alternatively than simply a recorder of events. He did not scruple connected juncture to embellish his taxable substance and to adhd oregon subtract details.
After the instrumentality of the expedition, Hurley went backmost to South Georgia to movie penguins and seals. They were a novelty to the nationalist past and Hurley felt his movie did not incorporate capable footage. The occurrence of the movie enabled the expedition’s debts to beryllium paid. From December 1919 to May 1920 Shackleton gave nationalist lectures connected the film, and doubly regular helium suffered the symptom of seeing his vessel lost.
It is not casual to take my favourite among Hurley’s solid sheet negatives. In nary peculiar order, I would suggest those I person already mentioned: “The Endurance Crushed by the Ice” and “Head of Moraine Fjord, South Georgia” (a.k.a. “Lulworth Cove”). The magnificent scenery says it all. It is not imaginable to permission retired “The Long, Long Night,” that masterful and masterly representation of Endurance astatine night. Hurley had acceptable 20 phosphorous flares astir her, and the effect is an enchanted ship, a imaginativeness for the eyes. Finally, I would take “On the Drifting Flow, Ocean Camp.” Shackleton stands by his tent, enarthrosis to enarthrosis with his second-in-command, Frank Wild, with scientists, officers, and unit behind. The men look rather serene contempt the stark desolation of their surroundings. They are surviving connected the crystal and beneath it surges the Weddell Sea. Their aboriginal is uncertain, yet the representation shows humankind’s infinite adaptability.
One of the astir iconic images of the Endurance, this photograph was taken by Frank Hurley astatine nighttime utilizing flares to make a “spectre ship” effect. ©Royal Geographical Society
An informal radical representation astatine Ocean Camp with Ernest Shackleton and Frank Wild successful the foreground; 1 of the past photographs taken by Hurley connected his Graflex solid sheet camera earlier the heavier and bulky photographic instrumentality was abandoned connected the crystal successful favour of the much portable Vest Pocket Kodak. ©Royal Geographical Society
The involvement successful Ernest Shackleton shows nary motion of abating. Many polar expeditions person gone distant successful his name. There person been Shackleton scholarships; 1 scholar, Teresa Darbyshire, discovered a caller taxon of marine bristle worm and named it the Micromaldane shackletoni. There is simply a Shackleton covering company, which awards a yearly prize for extortion of the polar regions. There person been galore books connected Shackleton’s leadership, which is cited by the subject and NASA arsenic good arsenic an American shot team. In 2002 the BBC conducted a nationwide canvass to find the “100 Greatest Britons of All Time”; Shackleton came successful astatine fig eleven. The aforesaid twelvemonth determination was a tv drama, Shackleton, starring Kenneth Branagh arsenic my grandfather. In 2016 the Royal Mail issued Shackleton stamps, utilizing the Hurley images, and the Shackleton Symphony, by London-based composer Paul Frith, was recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Since 2017 a Shackleton whisky has been produced.
The James Caird Society—named to grant the lifeboat successful which Shackleton and 5 companions sailed 800 miles (almost 1,300 kilometers) from Elephant Island, wherever they were marooned aft the sinking of the Endurance, to South Georgia to question help, and existing to observe Shackleton’s enactment and achievements—meets doubly a twelvemonth and is simply a thriving concern. In the Republic of Ireland, the Ernest Shackleton Autumn School has opened the lone dedicated Shackleton depository successful the world, adjacent his birthplace, Kilkea successful County Kildare. There person been galore exhibitions worldwide, each graced by the Hurley solid and celluloid negatives—and determination volition beryllium galore more. Some years ago, NASA adjacent named a crater connected the satellite “Shackleton,” and a crater connected Mars “Endurance.” So, I judge it could reasonably beryllium said that, with the links to Shackleton reaching beyond the stars, helium does so formed a agelong shadow. The portion played by Hurley’s negatives is incalculable.
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From The Endurance Photographs A Definitive Visual Record of Shackleton’s Expedition by The Royal Geographic Society. Copyright © 2026. Foreward copyright © 2026 by Alexandra Shackleton. Available from Chronicle Books.
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