Arnold Spencer-Smith

Arnold Patrick Spencer-Smith (1883-1916) was an English clergyman and amateur photographer who joined Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914-17, as Chaplain and photographer on the Ross Sea Party. The hardship of the expedition resulted in Spencer-Smith dying during the expedition. Cape Spencer-Smith on White Island at Vorlage:Coor dm is named in his honour.

Biography

Born in Streatham (he shared his birthday, 17th March, with Captain Lawrence Oates but was three years younger), he attended Woodridge Grammar School, King's College, London and Queen's College, Cambridge. He did not attend his exams and was given a pass degree in history. After a few years teaching at an Edinburgh preparatory school, Spencer-Smith was ordained as deacon into the Church of Scotland in 1910, subsequently being appointed Curate of All Saints, Edinburgh. He was ordained as priest shortly before leaving England to join the Aurora.

Expedition member

It is unclear how he came to join the expedition. One version is that he had wanted to enlist in the army at the outbreak of war, but as a clergyman was barred from combatant service. He therefore volunteered himself to Shackleton as a replacement for one of the original party who had left for active service. After arrival in Antarctica his unfamiliarity with polar work and his limited physical stamina were in evidence during the first (Jan-March 1915) depot-laying journey to 80 degrees S, when he was sent back to base early on by expedition leader Aeneas Mackintosh. During the 1915 winter season he worked at the Cape Evans base, mainly in the darkroom where he sometimes held religious services.

Had the circumstances of the expedition not dictated otherwise, it is unlikely that Spencer-Smith would have been needed for extensive sledging work. However, after the depletion of the party following the loss of SY Aurora in May 1915, he was required for the main depot journey to the Beardmore Glacier during the 1915-16 summer season. On that journey, worn down by the preliminary work of hauling stores up to the base depot at Minna Bluff, he collapsed on the main journey before the Beardmore was reached. Thereafter he had to be carried on the sledge, unable to help himself and dependent on Ernest Wild for his most basic needs. The party nevertheless completed its depot-laying mission and struggled back northward in worsening weather conditions, each man growing weaker as scurvy took hold, and progress forward was with acute difficulty. Spencer-Smith, uncomplaining but in the latter stages occasionally delirious, died on the Barrier on 9th March 1916, aged 32, two days before the safety of Hut Point was finally reached. He was buried in the ice.

Arnold Spencer-Smith was unmarried. He dedicated a final diary entry, 7th March, to his father, mother, brothers and sisters. He is commemorated by Cape Spencer-Smith on White Island at Vorlage:Coor dm.

His wallet

Spencer-Smith's wallet was found in 1999. A team of investigators entered Captain Scott's hut in the Antartic and found wedged by a bunk was a wallet with three photographs of a camping expedition in it. After extensive investigations it was found that this wallet must have belonged to Spencer-Smith. The wallet must have been mislaid in 1915. The wallet was found 84 years later.

Sources

• http://www.heritage.antarctica.org/AHT/CrewRossSeaParty

• Roland Huntford: Shackleton (biog.) Hodder & Stoughton 1985

• M & J Fisher: Shackleton (biog.) James Barrie Books, 1957

• Lennard Bickel: Shackleton's Forgotten Men Random House 2000

• Kelly Tyler-Lewis: The Lost Men Bloomsbury Pulications 2007(pb)