The sledge UPDATE: THIS SOLD FOR £163,718
A sledge from the first expedition to the Antarctic led by Ernest Shackleton is the top lot in Bonhams Travel and Exploration Sale in London on February 6. Writing about Shackleton in the current edition of Bonhams Magazine, the writer and campaigner Rosie Boycott recalled his status as a great British hero, “He became famous for making a journey so dangerous that even today, with modern high-tech kit, no one would repeat it. And, because his men loved him and trusted him to a fault, he was able to step from the mountains of South Georgia, not just into legend, but into the ranks of superhero whose name would forever be associated with the highest qualities of leadership, ones that seminars have laboured to teach students ever since.”
Born in Kilkea, County Kildare in 1874, Ernest Shackleton was a major figure in the history of Antarctic exploration. He was a member of Captain Scott’s Discovery Expedition in 1901-1904, before leading his own British Antarctic (Nimrod) Expedition in 1907-09. The sledge in the sale was used on the Nimrod expedition by Eric Marshall – one of the four men, with Shackleton, Jameson Adams, and Frank Wild, to undertake the sledge march to the South Pole. Although they had to abandon the attempt, they reached within 100 geographical miles of the Pole – at the time, the furthest south ever travelled. It is estimated at £60,000-100,000.
The four men of the Southern Party were accompanied on their journey by four ponies, each pulling an eleven-foot sledge. During the march, the ponies gradually succumbed to the conditions; three had to be humanely killed, and the last fell into a deep crevasse nearly taking the supplies and Frank Wild with it. Two of the four sledges were left where the first two ponies had been put down, as depots for the return journey. The two remaining sledges went further south.