Images(4)

AURORA lifebuoy

Date1916

Object number00054969

NameLifebuoy

MediumCork, canvas paint

DimensionsOverall: 170 × 90 mm, 6.12 kg, 750 mm

ClassificationsTools and equipment

Credit LineANMM Collection Gift from John Hooke CBE

Terms

DescriptionOn 6 December 1917 Captain Petrie of the North Coast Steam Navigation Co's MV COOMBAR spotted this lifebuoy in the waters off Tacking Point NSW on a run from the Richmond River to Sydney. He stopped his vessel to recover it. The letters SY AURORA and ITAE on its surface immediately told Captain Petrie that the lifebuoy was from the famous Antarctic vessel that had taken Douglas Mawson, Ernest Shackleton and many others south. ITAE stood for Shackleton's 1914-17 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition from which it had recently returned: the letters AAE, visible beneath it, for Mawson's 1911-14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition. The ropes were well-preserved. One portion of the lifebuoy was covered in barnacles. The vessel had been missing for six months, last seen on 20 June when it left Newcastle carrying a cargo of coal to Chile. All 21 men were lost. This lifebuoy is all that was recovered. HistoryThe AURORA was built as a wooden auxiliary barquentine of 580 tons in Glasgow in 1876 by shipbuilders Alexander Stephen & Sons Ltd for the Dundee Seal and Whale Fishing Company, which sailed annually from Dundee to the Newfoundland whaling grounds between 1876 and 1910. The vessel was used by Sir Douglas Mawson on his Australasian Antarctic expedition of 1911-1914. after which it was refitted in Sydney when sold to Sir Ernest Shackleton as the supply vessel for his Imperial Trans- Antarctic Expedition of 1914-1917. During this time AURORA was beset in the ice and drifted for 9 months in the Ross Sea. In 1917 the vessel was used to rescue the surviving members of the Ross Sea party from Cape Evans. In total the AURORA made five voyages to the Antarctic between 1911 and 1917. AURORA on the Australasian Antarctic Expedition Built specifically to withstand ice, the vessel was purchased in 1910 by John King Davis for Douglas Mawson's Australasian Antarctic Expedition to explore the coast to the west of Cape Adare, due south of Australia. In late 1911 Mawson sailed from Hobart to Macquarie Island where he left a small communications crew who would relay the first wireless signals from Antarctica to the world. He then set up two Antarctic exploring bases, the western party on Shackleton Ice Shelf under Frank Wild and the main base (Mawson's Hut) for the far eastern party under his leadership at Cape Denison in Commonwealth Bay, south of Tasmania where they arrived in January 1912. At each base Mawson and his men undertook a series of scientific investigations, including intensive land exploration along the coast and into the hinterland. The Commonwealth Bay base he later called 'The Home of the Blizzard' because of its exceptionally powerful and persistent katabatic winds. AURORA retreated to Hobart for the winter. Under the command of Captain John King Davis the vessel returned to Cape Denison in December 1912 to pick up Mawson and his team on the 'Far Eastern' sledging expedition - Belgrave Ninnis, an English army lieutenant, and Xavier Mertz, a Swiss doctor - but found that they were overdue. The AURORA waited until late January 1913 but with no sign of Mawson, and with conditions worsening rapidly, left a six-man support team at the base and sailed for Hobart. A few hours later Douglas Mawson arrived back at the base only to see the AURORA on the horizon on its way to collect the Western party under Wild - the sole survivor of the sledging expedition. Ninnis had been lost down a crevasse with most of the team's supplies on the outward journey while Mertz died on the return journey, possibly from Vitamin A poisoning from eating the livers of husky dogs. A radio message quickly alerted AURORA's Captain John King Davis, but fierce winds prevented his return to pick the men up. Mawson and the other men were left to spend the winter at Cape Denison. They were finally rescued by the AURORA in December 1913. AURORA as the Ross Sea supply party vessel for the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition In 1914 Sir Ernest Shackleton purchased the vessel from Mawson for his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition to carry his supply party to Ross Island. From there they were to lay depots inland to Mount Hope for the main trans-continental party to pick up on their anticipated crossing of the continent. AURORA left Hobart in December 1914 under the command of Aeneas Mackintosh and arrived in McMurdo Sound 24 January 1915 when the sledging parties immediately departed. Unfortunately, the vessel broke its moorings in a blizzard in May 1915, marooning the men. It drifted slowly north, beset in the ice with a damaged rudder, limping to Port Chalmers, Dunedin, New Zealand nearly 11 months later, in April 1916. It was during this expedition that Shackleton's ship ENDURANCE became trapped in the ice in the Weddell Sea and was eventually crushed. After camping on the ice for some months Shackleton and his men took to the ship's boats and made their way to the relative safety of Elephant Island where they established a camp. In order to get help, in April 1916 Shackleton and a small party sailed to South Georgia where a Norwegian whaling station existed. They were successful in this, but it was not until August that Shackleton was able to return to rescue his men from Elephant Island. The men from the AURORA party on the other side of the continent had to wait a further five months. AURORA was repaired in New Zealand and with funding from the British, Australian and New Zealand governments was repaired for a relief expedition later that year. It left Port Chalmers for the Ross Sea in December 1916, back under the command of John King Davis. With Shackleton on board as a supernumerary, the expedition rescued the marooned men from Cape Evans in January 1917. The vessel carried the men to Wellington New Zealand and after an auction sale of AURORA's supplies in March, (The Sydney Stock and Station Journal) 9 March 1917, returned to Australia to Newcastle 10 April 1917 where 'Shackleton's famous Antarctic exploring vessel' was to load coal (Northern Times 11 April 1917) under Captain R Reeves. Shackleton had sold the vessel to WR Grace of London (New York The argus 5 nov 1917). AURORA was on display for an afternoon in Newcastle with ferries carrying visitors every 15 minutes to Stockton (15 April 1917). All proceeds were directed to the Red Cross Fund. The vessel was loaded with coal and left for South America, only to return to Sydney Harbour after a bad leak near the icebreaker. After repairs at Jubilee Dock (Mort's Dock) the 41-year-old ship headed north to Newcastle on 18 June where it again loaded coal and departed for Iquique Chile where it was to load nitrate for New York. It disappeared en route, intending to pull into Wellington for coal and water. Captain Reeves, four officers and 16 men were on board, including Antarctic veteran James Paton. 'Scotty' Paton had made eight voyages to Antarctica, the first in 1901 with Robert Falcon Scott on the DISCOVERY expedition. Six months later the SY AURORA lifebuoy was picked up near Tacking Point on the north coast NSW by Captain Petrie in the North Coast Steam Navigation Co.'s MV COOMBAR, on the run from the Richmond River. (The Richmond River Express and Casino Kyogle Advertiser 11 December 1917). The following week the lifebuoy was displayed in the windows of Nicholson and Co in George St Sydney where it 'excited much interest'. AURORA was reported missing by Lloyds 31 Dec1917 /1 January 1918 (Argus 5 Nov 1918) SignificanceThis lifebuoy from the veteran Antarctic exploring vessel SY AURORA is the only remnant recovered from its presumed wreck on a coal delivery voyage from Newcastle to Chile in 1917. The captain, four officers and 16 crew were lost.

It is a very poignant evocation of the vessel and all the men who worked, sailed and lost their lives in its wake, from its early years in the Dundee Arctic whaling fleet and its latter career exploring and adventuring in Antarctica.

The faded lettering ITAE over AAE on its surface reveals evidence of the ship’s passage on the two most recent major Antarctic expeditions – Sir Douglas Mawson’s Australasian Antarctic Expedition 1911-14 and Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1914-17 - incredible given the adventures and ravages endured by the vessel and its crews in both icy and warmer latitudes.