Post by Administrator on Nov 26, 2015 21:10:21 GMT
Royal Mail are issuing Stamps of SHACKLETON and Endurance on 7th January 2016.
Sir Ernest Shackleton CVO OBE FRGS was born in County Kildare, Ireland on February 15th 1874 and died January 5th 1922. Shackleton was best known as a polar explorer who led three expeditions to the Antarctic.
Shackleton's first experience of the Antarctic was as third officer on Captain Robert Falcon Scott's Discovery Expedition between 1901 and 1904 but returned to the UK prematurely due to ill health. During Shackleton's second expedition (1907–1909) he and three companions established a new record Farthest South latitude at 88°S and expedition members climbed the active Antarctic volcano Mount Erebus. Shackleton was knighted by King Edward VII on his return home.
After the race to the South Pole ended in December 1911 with Roald Amundsen's conquest, Shackleton decided to cross Antarctica via the South Pole and the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition set out in 1914. The expedition's ship, Endurance, got trapped in ice and crushed. The crew escaped on to the sea ice and then rowed lifeboats to Elephant Island. Shackleton led a small party to South Georgia 720 miles away and, not only survived, arranged the rescue of his team members on Elephant Island. His extraordinary feat of leadership is still cited in military training establishments around the world.
Shackleton went back to the Antarctic on the Shackleton-Rowett Expedition in 1921 but died of a heart attack while his ship was at South Georgia and his well tended grave can still be seen there.