He participated in five expeditions to Antarctica during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, for which he was awarded the Polar Medal with four bars, one of only two men to be so honoured, the other being Ernest Joyce.

Wild took part in the following Antarctic expeditions: As second-in-command of Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, Wild was left in charge of 21 men on desolate Elephant Island as Shackleton and a crew of five undertook an epic open-ocean voyage to South Georgia aboard the lifeboat James Caird in order to seek rescue.

For more than four months, from 24 April to 30 August 1916, during the Antarctic winter, Wild and his crew waited on Elephant Island, surviving on a diet of seal, penguin and seaweed.

After taking a Russian language course, Wild became the Royal Navy's transport officer at Archangel, where he superintended the war materials which arrived during the Allied intervention in Russia.

After the war, Wild went to the Union of South Africa, where he farmed in Nyasaland with Francis Bickerton and James McIlroy, two former Antarctic comrades.

Shackleton died of a heart attack on South Georgia during the expedition, and Wild took over command and completed the journey, combating unfavourable weather to Elephant Island and along the Antarctic coast.

On 24 October 1922, Wild married Vera Alexandra Altman (née Bogosoff), the widow of a tea planter of Borneo, at Reading Register Office.

Wild earned enough money not only to buy a car (a Wolseley) but to take two holidays in the hinterland and coast of South Africa.

However, he had little respect for Frost; that and the demands of building the house in an extremely remote part of the country caused him to return to Johannesburg.

In the 2000s, while journalist and author Angie Butler was researching a book about Wild she discovered his ashes were still in a vault at Braamfontein Cemetery.

Alexandra Shackleton, attended a service conducted by the Rev Dr Richard Hines, rector of the Falkland Islands.

"[5] The journey to South Georgia, the service and the interment were the subject of a BBC Radio 4 programme in the Crossing Continents series.

The documentary film also featured commentary from polar historian Dr. Huw Lewis-Jones, author Francis Spufford and explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes.