Ernest Shackleton

Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton CVO OBE FRGS FRSGS (15 February 1874 – 5 January 1922) was an Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who commanded three British Antarctic expeditions. He was a key figure during the period known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Shackleton and his Anglo-Irish family[1] relocated to Sydenham in suburban south London when he was ten years old, from Kilkea, County Kildare, Ireland. Shackleton's first experience of the polar regions was as third officer on Captain Robert Falcon Scott's Discovery expedition of 1901–1904, from which he was sent home early on health grounds, after he and his companions Scott and Edward Adrian Wilson set a new southern record by marching to latitude 82°S.

In 1921, he rejoined the Shackleton-Rowett Expedition in Antarctica, but died of a heart attack while his ship was anchored in South Georgia. He was buried there at the request of his wife. Endurance's wreckage was discovered just over a century later. Shackleton's life was generally restless and unfulfilled away from his expeditions. In his pursuit of quick paths to wealth and stability, he initiated business endeavors that failed, and he died deeply in debt. After his death, he was lauded in the press but largely forgotten, whereas his rival Scott's heroic reputation lasted for decades. Shackleton was "rediscovered" later in the twentieth century and became a role model for leadership under harsh conditions.

Sir Raymond Priestley, one of his contemporaries, said in a 1956 address to the British Science Association, "Scott for scientific method, Amundsen for speed and efficiency, but when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton," paraphrasing Apsley Cherry-1922 Garrard's memoir The Worst Journey in the World. Shackleton was ranked eleventh in a BBC survey of the 100 Greatest Britons in 2002.