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Telegraph to the Australian Prime Minister from Commander Stenhouse on AURORA
Telegraph to the Australian Prime Minister from Commander Stenhouse on AURORA

Telegraph to the Australian Prime Minister from Commander Stenhouse on AURORA

Author (1887 - 1941)
Subject or historical figure (Australian, 1895 - 1974)
Date1916
Object numberANMS1541[014]
NameTelegraph
Mediumpaper
DimensionsOverall: 179 × 202 mm
ClassificationsEphemera
Credit LineAustralian National Maritime Museum Collection Gift from Maria Teresa Hooke OAM and her sons John Max and Paolo in memory of John Hooke CBE and Sir Lionel Hooke
DescriptionA wireless transmission from SY AURORA, addressed to the Prime Minister in Sydney from Joseph Stenhouse acting commander of the vessel during its 283-day drift in the ice while on service with the Ross Sea Party component of Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition in 1914–17. The message from Joseph Stenhouse, handwritten on Post Master Generals Department Tasmania letterhead, sends greetings from the crew of the AURORA. 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, built specifically to withstand ice, 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 nine months in the Ross Sea before limping to New Zealand. Young radio officer Lionel Hooke was on board and made repeated attempts to contact both the land party, now marooned and shore stations eventually making contact with radio receiver at The Bluff in New Zealand's far south. In 1917 AURORA was repaired and returned to the Antarctic 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.SignificanceThis telegraph is part of collection of 54 wireless transmissions sent from SY AURORA as the vessel edged towards safety in April 1916 and are from the collection of the wireless operator, Australian Lionel Hooke. They constitute a significant historical record from Shackleton's Ross Sea supply party on his Imperial Trans-Antarctic expedition of 1914-17 (ITAE). They chronicle the daily flurry of communications, arrangements, and concerns and cares necessary to see the ship and its 18 men safely in port after a long period imperilled in the ice.