Antarctic tent displayed by one AURORA crew member

Subject or historical figure Sir Lionel Hooke (Australian, 1895 - 1974)

Date1916

Object number00055433

NamePhotograph

Mediumpaper

DimensionsOverall: 135 × 96 mm

ClassificationsPhotographs

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

Terms

DescriptionA photograph of an Antarctic tent displayed by one SY AURORA crew member. Inside the tent, there is a sleeping bag and provisions. The image is part of the collection of Lionel Hooke, the wireless operator aboard SY AURORA, the Ross Sea Party supply ship for Shackleton’s Trans-Atlantic Imperial Expedition of 1914-17. 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 photograph reveals public interest in all things Antarctic during the heroic age of exploration in the early decades of the twentieth century, especially during WW I when war weary audiences were eager for positive news of survival.

When Shackleton's supply ship AURORA arrived in Port Chalmers New Zealand under jury rig in April 1916 after 11 months trapped in ice, it was big news. The public campaign to garner support for a relief voyage to pick up the ten men marooned at Ross Island when the ship was torn away would take some months.