Nimrod Expedition
[a] A separate group led by Welsh Australian geology professor Edgeworth David reached the estimated location of the South magnetic pole, and the expedition also achieved the first ascent of Mount Erebus, Antarctica's second highest volcano.
The scientific team, which included the future Australasian Antarctic Expedition leader Douglas Mawson, carried out extensive geological, zoological and meteorological work.
Shackleton's transport arrangements, based on Manchurian ponies, motor traction, and sled dogs, were innovations which, despite limited success, were later copied by Scott for his ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition.
On his return, Shackleton overcame the Royal Geographical Society's (RGS) initial scepticism about his achievements and received many public honours, including a knighthood from King Edward VII.
[2] Shackleton felt this physical failure as a personal stigma,[3] and on his return to England he was determined to prove himself, in the words of Discovery's second-in command Albert Armitage, as "a better man than Scott".
[12] This early plan also revealed Shackleton's proposed transport methods, involving a combination of dogs, ponies and a specially designed motor vehicle.
In April, believing that he had got the backing of Scottish businessman Donald Steuart,[15] Shackleton travelled to Norway intending to buy a 700-ton polar vessel, Bjorn, that would have served ideally as an expedition ship.
[20] In mid-July he approached the philanthropic Earl of Iveagh, otherwise known as Edward Guinness, head of the Anglo-Irish brewing family, who agreed to guarantee the sum of £2,000 (updated value £270,000) provided that Shackleton found other backers to contribute a further £6,000.
[24][25][e] Shackleton hoped to recruit a strong contingent from the Discovery Expedition and offered his former comrade Edward Adrian Wilson the post of chief scientist and second-in-command.
[23] Others in the shore party were the two surgeons, Alistair Mackay and Eric Marshall, Bernard Day the motor expert, and Sir Philip Brocklehurst, the subscribing member who had been taken on as assistant geologist.
[30] The small scientific team that departed from England included 41-year-old biologist James Murray and 21-year-old geologist Raymond Priestley, a future founder of the Scott Polar Research Institute.
[32] Shackleton's February 1907 announcement that he intended to base his expedition at the old Discovery headquarters was noted by Scott, whose own future Antarctic plans were at that stage unannounced.
"I think you should retire from McMurdo Sound", he wrote, advising Shackleton not to make any plans to work from anywhere in the entire Ross Sea quarter until Scott decided "what limits he puts on his own rights".
[34] The dispute soured relations between the two men (who nevertheless maintained public civilities) and would eventually lead to the complete rupture of Shackleton's formerly close friendship with Wilson.
[38] On 14 January, in sight of the first icebergs, the towline was cut;[38] Nimrod, under her own power, proceeded southward into the floating pack ice, heading for the Barrier Inlet where six years earlier Discovery had paused to allow Scott and Shackleton to take experimental balloon flights.
This work was hampered by poor weather and by the caution of Captain England, who frequently took the ship out into the bay until ice conditions at the landing ground were in his view safer.
Nimrod at last sailed away north, England unaware that ship's engineer Harry Dunlop was carrying a letter from Shackleton to the expedition's New Zealand agent, requesting a replacement captain for the return voyage next year.
This knowledge was an open secret among the shore party; Marshall recorded in his diary that he was "glad to see the last of [England] ... whole thing damned disgrace to name of country!
[47] In the ensuing months of winter darkness Joyce and Wild printed around 30 copies of the expedition's book, Aurora Australis, which were sewn and bound using packaging materials.
Shackleton himself would be leading the South Pole journey, which had suffered a serious setback during the winter when four of the remaining ponies died, mainly from eating volcanic sand for its salt content.
[52] After a slow start due to a combination of poor weather and lameness in the horses, Shackleton reduced the daily food allowance to extend the total available journey time to 110 days.
The mountains to the west curved round to block their path southward, and the party's attention was caught by a "brilliant gleam of light" in the sky ahead.
Their position was 85° 51' S, still 249 nautical miles (461 km; 287 mi) from the Pole, and they were now carrying barely a month's supply of food, having stored the rest in depots for their return journey.
[76] While preparing for his southern journey, Shackleton gave instructions to David to lead a northern party to Victoria Land to carry out magnetic and geological work.
By the end of October they had crossed McMurdo Sound and advanced 60 miles (100 km) up the difficult Victoria Land coast, at which point they decided to concentrate all their efforts on reaching the Magnetic Pole.
[82] Exhausted, and short of food, the party faced a return journey of 250 nautical miles (460 km; 290 mi), with just 15 days to complete it if they were to make their prearranged coastal rendezvous with Nimrod.
[85] Amid the acclamation and unstinting praise that Shackleton received from the exploring community, including Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen, the response of the RGS was more guarded.
[86] However, on 14 June, Shackleton was met at London's Charing Cross Station by a very large crowd, which included RGS president Leonard Darwin and a rather reluctant Captain Scott.
On 9 January 1909, the table shows that the party travelled a further 16 nautical miles (30 km; 18 mi) to reach their farthest south, and the same distance back to camp.
[94] Ten years after her return from the Antarctic, Nimrod was battered to pieces in the North Sea after running aground on the Barber Sands off the Norfolk coast on 31 January 1919.
