How did Ernest Shackleton die?

THE expeditions of Ernest Shackleton, in which the limits of human endurance were pushed to their peak, have become the stuff of legends.

Shackleton's famous ship, Endurance, sank beneath the icy waves and was lost for a century, but has now been found by an expedition.

Who was Ernest Shackleton?

Ernest Henry Shackleton was born on February 15, 1874, in County Kildare, Ireland, where his father was a doctor.

The family moved to London where Shackleton was educated but he refused to follow in his father’s footsteps and instead he joined the merchant navy when he was 16.

He qualified as a master mariner in 1898 and travelled widely but was keen to explore the poles.

In 1901, Shackleton was chosen to go on the Antarctic expedition led by British naval officer Robert Falcon Scott - Britain’s other Antarctic hero - on the ship Discovery.

Shackleton and Scott trekked towards the South Pole, which had yet to be reached by humans, in extremely difficult conditions.

They got closer than anyone had come before, but Shackleton fell seriously ill and had to return home.

Shackleton also spent some time as a journalist and was elected secretary of the Scottish Royal Geographical Society.

In 1906, he even unsuccessfully stood for parliament in Dundee as the Liberal Unionist candidate but was keen to return to the South Pole.

Shackleton was knighted in December 1909 by King Edward VII.

How did Ernest Shackleton die?

After World War I was over, Shackleton organised another expedition, which aimed to circumnavigate the Antarctic continent.

On January 4, 1922, Ernest Shackleton’s ship, the Quest, finally reached South Georgia, an ice-capped island in the South Atlantic Ocean.

At 47 years old, Shackleton was on his fourth journey to Antarctica, and the third he had led.

But on January 5, 1922, he died of a heart attack off South Georgia and was buried on the island.

When did Ernest Shackleton go to the Antarctic?

Shackleton had his first taste of polar exploration when he travelled with Robert Falcon Scott to the Antarctic in 1901.

Although he'd been sent home from the trip due to ill health, Shackleton vowed to return to the Antarctic and prove himself as a polar explorer.

In 1908, Shackleton, with the backing of various wealthy sponsors, returned to the Antarctic as the leader of his own expedition on the ship Nimrod.

The main focus of this expedition was Shackleton's party heading towards the Pole.

Accompanied by Frank Wild, Eric Marshall and Jameson Boyd Adams, he set off on October 29, 1908.

In the end, Shackleton and his entourage had reached 88°23' south, only 97 miles from the Pole.

The expedition made many important scientific discoveries and set a record by coming even closer to the South Pole than before.

The group also climbed Mount Erebus, the Antarctic’s highest mountain.

The success of the expedition earned Shackleton a knighthood on his return to Britain.

In the meantime, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole in 1911, in a race with Scott, who died on the return journey.

Shackleton made his third trip to the Antarctic with the ship Endurance in 1914, an expedition that has acquired epic status.

The plan was to cross Antarctica via the South Pole but in 1915, Endurance became trapped in the ice, and sank in November 1915.

The crew had already abandoned the ship to live on the floating ice.

In April 1916, smaller reinforced lifeboats called the Stancomb Wills and the Dudley Docker were launched for the voyage to Elephant Island.

From there, six crew members including Shackleton and the captain of the Endurance, Frank Worsley, planned to sail to South Georgia to get help.

They used a lifeboat named the James Caird which they adapted for the 800 mile journey across the treacherous seas of the South Atlantic.

Success depended on Worsley’s navigation, based on sightings attempted during the very brief appearances of the sun, as the boat pitched and rolled in the mountainous waves.

Even a small error would have led to them missing South Georgia and certain death.

They managed to reach the island but were forced to abandon the boat and trek to the main town to get help.

In August 1912, Sir Ernest, aboard the Yelcho, rescued the 22 men left on Elephant Island.

It was 24 months and 22 days since leaving England.

Who found Ernest Shackleton's ship?

In July 2021, it was announced that archaeologists planned an expedition to find the wreck of Shackleton's Endurance ship.

The crew of the Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust's Endurance22 Expedition set sail from Cape Town, South Africa, on February 5, 2022.

On board the research vessel SA Agulhas II, they voyaged to Antarctica's Weddell Sea to find and film the wreck non-intrusively using underwater search robots.

The SA Agulhas II previously took part in the 'Weddell Sea Expedition', where it succeeded in reaching the rough location of the wreck, yet did not find it.

On March 9, 2022, the crew announced they had found the wreck of the Endurance.

The ship was found just over four nautical miles south of Frank Worsley's coordinates for the sinking.

Mensun Bound, the director of exploration shared the news on Endurance22's expedition blog

He said: "She is upright, well proud of the seabed and in an excellent state of preservation.

"You can even see her paintwork and count the fastenings.

"There is some damage to the fo’c’sle deck and part of her starboard side, but otherwise she is largely intact."

The ship was found 100 years to the day that Shackleton was buried.

Bound added: "Shackleton, we like to think, would have been proud of us."