An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean - Antarctic Survivor

by Michael Smith

  The British National Antarctic Expedition was under way, complete with a new, purpose-built ship, the 172-ft long Discovery which boasted a steel-plated bow and 26-inch thick sides to combat the ice. It was to be a mixture of exploration and scientific research, although this, too, caused considerable friction between the sponsors, the Royal Geographical Society and Royal Society. Although there was some dispute over the expedition’s priorities, Markham’s will prevailed. Markham was unequivocal and insisted that the great object of the expedition was the ‘exploration of the interior of Antarctic land’.

  Crucially, it was Markham who decided that Scott should explore the Ross Sea area which had been discovered 60 years earlier by Sir James Clark Ross and was to become forever associated with Britain’s polar exploration exploits during the Heroic Age.

  Markham schemed and plotted at every turn, imposing his influence right down to the smallest details of the expedition. He even designed individual 3-ft long, swallow-tailed flags or pennants which would be carried by the sledging parties on their journeys across the ice into the unknown.

  With most squabbles now settled, Discovery left London on 31 July 1901 for the short trip to the Isle of Wight to participate on the fringe of Cowes Week and receive a royal farewell. The country was still coming to terms with the loss of Queen Victoria after her long reign and the new, but uncrowned monarch, Edward VII and his wife Queen Alexandra, came on board Discovery on 5 August to bid the expedition a royal farewell. Scott was impressed and recalled:

  ‘This visit was quite informal, but will be ever memorable from the kindly, gracious interest shown in the minutest details of our equipment, and the frank expression of good wishes for our plans and welfare. But although we longed to get away from our country as quietly as possible, we could not but feel gratified that His Majesty should have shown such personal sympathy with our enterprise …’3

  Discovery, the fulfilment of Markham’s obsessive ambition and the opening chapters of both Britain’s Heroic Age and the Scott legend, sailed slowly away from the Isle of Wight at noon on 6 August 1901. She would not return home for almost three years.

  On the other side of the world, Tom Crean was in the middle of a period of almost two years on board HMS Ringarooma, the P-class special torpedo vessel of 6,400 tons which formed part of the Royal Navy’s Australia–New Zealand squadron. Ringarooma, with the unlikely sounding name, was to be the unexpected launching pad for his remarkable Antarctic career.

  The odd name for a ship in the Royal Navy arose from a special arrangement struck between Britain and Australia in the late Victorian age. Under the Imperial Defence Act of 1887, the Australians agreed to pay for the building of five warships for the Navy on condition that they were deployed in the seas around Australia and New Zealand. Ringarooma, built in 1890, was crewed by Royal Navy personnel, but the Australians were given the right to choose their own names for all five ships.

  Crean had joined Ringarooma on 15 February 1900 but before long had suffered an unfortunate brush with naval authority. On 18 December he was summarily demoted from PO to Able Seaman for an unknown misdemeanour, a rank he would retain for exactly twelve months.4

  By November 1901, Scott’s expedition was in open water heading for New Zealand, the last staging post of civilisation before setting off into the unexplored region. Unknown to either of them, Able Seaman Tom Crean would be waiting for Discovery.

  Some confusion has surrounded the circumstances of Crean’s introduction to the polar landscape. Almost every mention of Crean in books, magazines and newspapers over the years has linked his arrival on the Antarctic scene with the untimely and widely reported death of another seaman, Charles Bonner, at Lyttelton, New Zealand, where Discovery was being resupplied before departing for the South at Christmas 1901. However, Crean’s elevation from the obscurity of the naval mess deck to a high-profile place on the Discovery expedition had nothing to do with the death of Bonner. Crean was already on board Discovery when Bonner died, having signed up with the expedition two weeks earlier. His arrival on the Antarctic scene was due to an entirely different act of fate which has received very little attention over the years.

  Crean’s contact with the expedition arose because Ringarooma and another man-of-war in the New Zealand squadron, HMS Lizard, had been instructed by the Admiralty to lend every possible assistance to Scott in New Zealand before the party set out on the journey into the unknown. Ringarooma’s log reported its first sighting of Discovery off New Zealand at 4.45 a.m. on Friday, 29 November,5 and doubtless Crean would have been as eager as his messmates to catch sight of the historic vessel as it headed for one of the greatest journeys of the age.

  The Discovery expedition to one of the world’s last unconquered spots had aroused huge interest in the English-speaking world. It was regarded by many as something of a virility symbol for Britain at a time when the Victorian age had finally drawn to a close and the Empire was under severe strain in places like South Africa and Ireland.

  A little later that day, Discovery arrived at Lyttelton Harbour, just to the south of Christchurch and Ringarooma’s Captain Rich wasted little time carrying out Admiralty orders to help the explorers. He immediately provided Scott with some extra manpower to assist with his preparations for the journey. This included extensive overhauling and refitting to Discovery’s rigging and a trip into dry dock to trace a persistent leak which had badly damaged some provisions since leaving London.

  The Ringarooma log records that the first working party was despatched to Discovery on 3 December 1901.6 It seems probable that Crean was a member of that and other teams of men who were sent across the harbour to the Discovery over the following two and a half weeks while the ship was docked at Lyttelton. From 3 December to 20 December, the ship’s log details an almost unbroken daily routine of crew members leaving the ship in the morning and returning in late afternoon after a stint on Discovery’s decks.

  As a member of these working parties, Crean quickly gained some knowledge of Discovery as a working vessel and the mood on board. It also helps explain why he volunteered to join a ship making ready to sail into largely unexplored territory for perhaps two or three years.

  However, it needed another intervention of fate to bring Crean onto the Antarctic stage alongside the likes of Scott, Shackleton, Wilson, Lashly, Evans and Wild, some of the most famous names from the Heroic Age of polar exploration who were all together on board Discovery that day in Lyttelton.

  Crean’s opportunity came when Scott encountered an ugly problem with a member of the Discovery crew, seaman Harry J. Baker. Surprisingly, the Baker incident has been widely overlooked in chronicling events at this time.

  Baker, who appears to have been a troublemaker, struck a Petty Officer for some unknown reason and promptly deserted. This left Scott with an unexpected vacancy to fill only days before he was due to sail south and he went straight to Captain Rich on the Ringarooma for help.

  Scott chose not to mention the Baker incident in his bestselling book on the expedition and Markham provided only scant information about the seaman. Indeed, Baker does not warrant a single mention in the lengthy Scott tome, even in the list of crew members. It is as though he did not exist. However, it was the little-documented desertion of Harry J. Baker which was directly responsible for introducing Tom Crean to polar exploration.

  Seaman Baker, who was 25 years of age and came from Sandgate in Kent, appears to have caused problems on the Discovery’s long journey from England and was not popular. But the only formal record of Baker’s misdemeanours can be found in a handwritten letter from Scott to the Royal Geographical Society dated 18 December 1901 as Discovery was preparing to leave New Zealand for the last time.7 It was also written three days before Bonner’s fatal accident and the subsequent desertion of another seaman, Sinclair, who felt responsible for Bonner’s death and also fled.

  Scott hinted at earlier difficulties with seaman Baker when he confided to the RGS:

  ‘Baker was a
good seaman but unpopular with his messmates.’8

  Striking a PO was an offence regarded as very serious in the Royal Navy at any time and Scott immediately ordered Baker’s arrest. In his letter to the RGS, Scott dutifully reported:

  ‘He [Baker] struck a Petty Officer and learnt from me that I could not afterwards keep him in the ship – in consequence of which, he ran away. I immediately issued a warrant for his arrest and offered a reward for his apprehension, but he has not yet been found.’9

  Sir Clements Markham, presumably acting on Scott’s information, later wrote his own truncated version of events in his Personal Narrative. He described the Baker incident in the following way:

  ‘Discharged at Lyttelton as objectionable. He ran. Messmates did not like him.’10

  Markham later amended his initial entry with a more abrupt verdict on Baker, striking out the original comments and writing:

  ‘Ran at Lyttelton. Objectionable.’11

  Nor does Ringarooma’s log provide any further background into the circumstances of Crean’s appointment and transfer to Discovery. But it does show that Crean was assigned to Discovery before Bonner’s death. The final entry in the log on 9 December, some eleven days before Bonner’s death, simply records:

  ‘Discharged Crean AB to SS Discovery.’12

  Records of the Discovery expedition at the RGS show that Crean was recruited on 10 December 1901. Scott merely recorded in his letter to the RGS:

  ‘By permission of the Admiral, Captain Rich of the Ringarooma was able to fill this vacancy [Baker] with one of his men named Crean.’13

  The farmer’s-son-turned-sailor had now graduated to exploration and for his troubles Crean was paid the going rate for an able seaman, some £2 5s 7d per month (£2.28 or the equivalent of £201 a month at today’s prices). The general assumption has always been that Crean volunteered for Discovery in those days before Christmas, 1901, although there is no conclusive evidence either way. However, it seems inconceivable that Captain Rich would have ordered the seaman to join the expedition, given the hazardous nature of the journey. It was also consistent with Crean’s nature to volunteer.

  One popular anecdote claims that a shipmate of Crean’s heard him offering to volunteer for the expedition and declared: ‘I didn’t think you were crazy enough for a mad trip to the end of the world.’ Crean responded: ‘Haven’t I been mad enough to come from the other end of the world?’

  Crean’s daily trips to Discovery as a member of the auxiliary working parties obviously would have alerted him to the vacancy caused by Baker’s assault on the Petty Officer. But there were other issues. Any seaman who did answer the call for volunteers for such a journey would have earned considerable respect and admiration on the lower decks. Any sailor with a knowledge of history would also have known that exploration had been a well-trodden route to promotion in the British navy since the days of Cook and others.

  But the decision to volunteer also reflected an early indication of Crean’s innate self-confidence and inner belief in his own ability. This, allied with the sense of independence which he had developed during his tough upbringing, had created a formidably strong character.

  The likely voluntary nature of Crean’s secondment to Discovery also underlines the essential haphazard nature of the early days of polar exploration. Like the vast majority of the Discovery party, Crean had no experience of the polar environment and had received no training for the rigours ahead. The basic qualification for so many on board was a strong sense of adventure and the promise of travel into the unknown. In Crean’s case, there was the added factor that he happened to be in the right place at the right time.

  The average age of the men in the Discovery party was only 27 and Crean at 24 would have been entirely comfortable with his new messmates. For someone who had lied over his age to join the Navy at fifteen in the quest for adventure, volunteering for a trip into the unknown for an unknown duration would have represented a new and exciting challenge. Crean had become a popular figure among the seamen on the Ringarooma during his near two years’ turn of duty. His messmates confirmed his popularity by arranging a collection to buy a small parting gift for the Irishman before his journey. The small token of friendship was a photo album with a simple inscription which provides a clear indication of the high regard in which he was held. The inscription with the album reads:

  ‘This was presented to Thos Crean by his shipmates of HMS Ringarooma as a true token of respect and good wishes for his future welfare and safe return on his departure to the Antarctic Regions as a volunteer in the British ship, Discovery. December 20, 1901.’

  Another personal possession he took on his way south was the little scapular, still tied round his neck by the leather cord.

  3

  Into the unknown

  Preparation for the send-off from New Zealand quickened and Scott planned to sail from Lyttelton, the port of Christchurch, on 21 December 1901, before making one brief final stop at Port Chalmers, Dunedin, to take on the last few supplies of coal for the trip across the treacherous Southern Ocean. However, the great adventure did not get off to a very encouraging start because of the fatal accident to seaman Charles Bonner.

  Departure day had begun well, in almost festive mood. The arrival of Discovery in New Zealand had aroused tremendous local interest and thousands flocked to the modest little port to bid Scott’s party farewell. The clamour to catch a final glimpse of the explorers was such that special trains packed with well-wishers were chartered from the centre of nearby Christchurch. On arrival they found bands playing, whistles hooting and the enthusiastic crowds cheering and waving.

  The Bishop of Christchurch came on board and ceremoniously blessed the explorers after a short service on the mess deck. Soon afterwards, the warship, Lizard, and Crean’s former vessel, Ringarooma, led the heavily-laden Discovery slowly out of Lyttelton Harbour and Scott reported another five gaily dressed steamers, crowded with passengers who accompanied them on the initial stage of their long journey. Scott noted:

  ‘Wharves and quays were packed with enthusiastic figures. It was indeed a great send off.’1

  William Lashly, the stoker who was to become so closely linked with Crean in the annals of Antarctic folklore, said there were ‘hundreds’ on the quays to hail Discovery and added:

  ‘Our stay in Lyttelton has been a busy but pleasant one. I think the people are very nice in every thing and every way. They really seem to think we want a little enjoyment before we leave here. We had a splendid sendoff – all the ships in harbour came out to the heads and wished us God speed and safe return …’2

  But at this point, death struck Bonner, the young seaman. Bonner, who was 23 years of age and hailed from Bow in London’s East End, had joined Discovery in June 1901, from HMS Jupiter. He was one of Scott’s earliest recruits for the expedition.

  Unfortunately, the celebratory mood proved too much for the seaman, who had been drinking heavily and rashly climbed above the crow’s-nest to the top of the mainmast in his eagerness to gain the best view of proceedings below as Discovery began to move gently out of Lyttelton Harbour. Scott remembered the sorry episode in his book:

  ‘There, seated on the truck, he had remained cheering with the rest until in a moment of madness he raised himself into a standing position, supported only by the slender wind vane which capped the mast. Precisely what happened next will never be known; possibly the first of the sea swell caused him to lose his balance; we below only know that, arrested by a wild cry, we turned to see a figure hurtling through the air, still grasping the wind vane from the masthead. He fell head foremost on the corner of an iron deckhouse and death was instantaneous.’3

  Lashly, never a man for over-embroidery, wrote in his diary:

  ‘He lost his balance when the ship met the first swell and fell to the deck still clutching the weather vane.’4

  Edward ‘Bill’ Wilson, the surgeon and zoologist on Discovery, remembered that many of the hardened sailors were affe
cted by the tragedy. His diary records that some of the men ‘wept like children’ and James Duncan, the shipwright, said the accident had ‘cast a gloom over the ship’s company’.5 Seaman Sinclair, who is thought to have given Bonner a bottle of whisky before he climbed the mainmast, later stole some civilian clothing and disappeared. Scott described the incident as ‘one of those tragedies that awake one to the grim realities of life’ and explained that ‘sadness and gloom’ descended on the ship. Bonner was buried shortly after arrival at Port Chalmers on 23 December. And as a bleak reminder of the ‘grim realities’ of the meagre life below decks in the Royal Navy in the early Edwardian era, Scott’s report to the RGS reveals that Bonner’s ‘few clothes and belongings’ would be sold on board the Ringarooma. The proceeds, he noted, would ‘probably be very small’.

  Bonner’s replacement was not Crean, but Jesse Handsley, a native of Gloucester and a former shipmate of Crean from the Ringarooma who had also volunteered to join the expedition.