Falmouth visit by explorer Shackleton to open Spring Show

The Endurance sank in the Antarctic pack ice in 1915. It has now been found, and filmed underwater frozen in time in the Weddell Sea, just a century after Shackleton’s death which is being marked with a major exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society.

Undated handout photo issued by Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust of the stern of the wreck of Endurance, Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship which has not been seen since it was crushed by the ice and sank in the Weddell Sea in 1915.

Shackleton was invited to Falmouth in April 1912 by his friend, the Falmouth and Penryn MP Sydney Goldman, to open the Falmouth Spring Flower Show and raise public funds for his Endurance venture. He stayed with the Goldmans at Trefusis House, their home in Flushing.

The explorer gave a graphic lecture on his earlier expedition in 1907- 1909, during which he turned back within 97 miles from the South Pole having decided if his party continued they would not have enough food to return to their base on the ship Nimrod.

Ernest Shackleton

He described to his rapt audience how their rations were soon reduced to ‘two thin cups of tea, one cup of cocoa, and some salt and pepper’. He told how one day they marched for 22 hours with nothing to eat and made beef tea out of the frozen blood of a dead pony. The journey of 1,755 miles lasted 126 days ‘during which time we never had our clothes off.’

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Poignantly some of the photographs Shackleton screened to illustrate his lecture were of icepacks and icebergs, of particularly interest to the audience as the Titanic had collided with an iceberg and sunk in the North Atlantic on 15 April 1912. The Lake’s Falmouth Packet newspaper on April 26th 1912, reported how ‘Sir Ernest pointed out just such a berg as the Titanic ran into, and just such an icepack as the people found themselves when in their lifeboats after the liner had gone down.’

Undated handout photo issued by Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust of the taffrail, ship's wheel and aft well deck on the wreck of Endurance

The flower show committee later donated half of the show’s takings to the Mayor’s Titanic Distress Fund. On a lighter note Shackleton quipped that he ‘was much more at home opening a tin of sardines than opening a flower show. It puzzled him why a South Polar explorer should come to Falmouth to open a flower show because in the Antarctic there were only mosses and lichens. We wept tears of joy one day when we found a little bit of moss. This is lovely show, and how he could all smell the flowers.’

Three years later Shackleton gave the order to abandon the Endurance as she sank in the ice on 21 November 1915. Lifeboats were manned and rowed to nearby Elephant Island from where Shackleton and some of his crew sailed for 17 days 750 miles in an open boat to raise the alarm at a whaling station in South Georgia. All 28 of those left behind were safely rescued.

Rare photograph of Shackleton, seated fifth left in the front row beside the Gyllyngdune Gardens bandstand, can been seen throughout the free flower show on March 26 to 27 at the Princess Pavilion

Shackleton was the third person to open the Falmouth Spring flower show which was first staged in 1910 and opened by Queen Victoria’s daughter Princess Christian, and in 1911 by the Queen’s granddaughter Princess Alexander of Teck who also opened the newly built Princess Pavilion. A photographic history of the show, including this rare photograph of Shackleton, seated fifth left in the front row beside the Gyllyngdune Gardens bandstand, can been seen throughout the free flower show on March 26th and 27th at the Princess Pavilion.

This Sunday March 20 is the closing date for show entries. For a free show schedule and entry form email henrietta@falmouthtowncouncil.com , call 07940037975. See the Falmouth Spring Flower Show Facebook for updates .