He traveled to the Antarctic again, this time under the command of Ernest Shackleton, on the Nimrod expedition where he was third officer and boatswain.

He returned once more with the Terra Nova expedition, Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole.

After Endurance was crushed in pack ice and the men set up for Elephant Island in the three lifeboats, he was part of Worsley's crew in the Dudley Docker.

Cheetham enlisted in the Mercantile Marine and was serving as second officer on SS Prunelle when on 22 August 1918, he was killed when the ship was torpedoed in the North Sea by a German U-boat.

[1] In 2016, a plaque was installed at Hull Paragon station, jointly commemorating Cheetham and fellow Antarctic explorer William Colbeck: 'Two of many Hull seafarers on the ship Morning who participated in the Antarctic expeditions to relieve Captain Scott 1902–1904 and were welcomed by thousands at this station on their return'.