The collection comprises of material relating to the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition [Weddell Sea Party], 1914-1916 (leader Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton).
Henry [Harry] McNish was born on 11 September 1874 at Port Glasgow, Scotland.
McNish was selected as carpenter for the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition [Weddell Sea Party], 1914-1917 (leader Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton). After Endurance was crushed in the pack ice of the Weddell Sea the entire company spent five months on the ice before escaping in the three lifeboats to Elephant Island, South Shetland Islands. Two of the life boats were made into a shelter for the company while Shackleton, Thomas Crean, Frank Worsley, Timothy McCarthy, McNish and John Vincent sailed 1450Km to South Georgia in the James Caird. Arriving at South Georgia Shackleton, Crean and Worsley made the first major trek across the island to the whaling station at Stromness. The steam tug Yelcho rescued the men on Elephant island in August 1916.
After the expedition, McNish joined the New Zealand Shipping company, eventually settling in Wellington. Retiring due to ill health, he died on 24 September 1930 in Wellington Hospital, New Zealand, and was buried with full Naval honours.
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Published catalogue by Clive Holland Manuscripts in the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge, England - a catalogue, Garland Publishing, New York and London (1982) ISBN 0824093941.
Additional finding aids are available at the Institute for material received after 1982.
Descriptions compiled by N. Boneham, Assistant Archivist with assistance from R. Stancombe and reference to Robert Keith Headland Antarctic Chronology, unpublished corrected revision of Chronological list of Antarctic expeditions and related historical events, (1 December 2001) Cambridge University Press (1989) ISBN 0521309034 and Visit and learn and Shackleton's captain, a biography of Frank Worsley by John Bell Thomson, Hazard Press, Christchurch New Zealand (1998)
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