Aeneas Mackintosh

Aeneas Lionel Acton Mackintosh (1st July 1879 - 8th May 1916) was a British seaman and explorer who participated in two of Sir Ernest Shackleton's expeditions to the Antarctic. Born in Tirhut, India (some sources give his birth year as 1881), he attended Bedford School in England before leaving early to go to sea, in 1894. After serving a Merchant Officer's apprenticeship, he joined the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company in 1899.

First journey south, 1907-09

In 1907 Mackintosh joined Shackleton's British Antarctic Expedition as second officer on the ship Nimrod, later transferring to the shore party. Shortly after arrival in the Antarctic, as the result of an accident whilst assisting with unloading operations, he sustained injuries which caused the loss of his right eye. After emergency surgery he went back to New Zealand with the ship, but returned in January 1909 in time to participate in an ill-conceived ice-walk to Cape Royds which almost cost him his life, and in depot-laying activity in support of Shackleton's returning polar party. He was present at the base when Shackleton, having narrowly failed to reach the South Pole, arrived on 1st March with his three companions, Frank Wild, Jameson Adams and Eric Marshall, just in time to catch the ship.

1909-1914

Following his return to England in 1909 Mackintosh left the P and O. He remained in touch with Shackleton, on whose behalf he visited gold mines in Carpathia (Hungary) to assess the worth of some speculative shareholdings which Shackleton hoped to use for fund-raising purposes. He also joined a treasure-hunting expedition in the Cocos Islands, off the Panama Pacific coast. At some point he took the post of assistant secretary to the Imperial Merchant Service Guild, in Liverpool.

The Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1914-17

When Shackleton announced his plans for a crossing of the Antarctic continent on foot from a landing on the Weddell Sea coast, Mackintosh agreed to join him. In the original expedition prospectus Mackintosh was named as one of the men who would make the crossing with Shackleton. However, he subsequently agreed to take command of the Ross Sea Party, which was to proceed from Australia on SY Aurora to Captain Scott's old Ross Island base, Cape Evans, and from there lay down a series of depots across the Great Ice Barrier (now the Ross Ice Shelf), to the foot of the Beardmore Glacier. These depots would supply Shackleton's party on the final part of their march from the opposite side of the continent. Mackintosh arrived in Australia late in 1914 to take up his duties, to find the Aurora unfit for Antarctic work and requiring an extensive refit for which neither facilities nor funding were available. There were further problems with the financial arrangements promised by Shackleton, who had clearly over-estimated the extent to which the Australian authorities were prepared to co-operate. Furthermore, stores and equipment that had been accumulated were incomplete and partly damaged. The tasks of organising the ship's refit and of dealing with numerous financial and other difficulties, and with an unsympathetic and irritated Australian government, taxed and depressed Mackintosh and led to delays in the departure of the Aurora to the Antarctic.

The Ross Sea Party

The story of the Ross Sea party during 1915-16 is one of misery and misfortune, tempered by uncommon heroism. The salient points, extensively covered in the various accounts of the expedition, are: the precipitate sledging journey to 80degS, made at Mackintosh's insistence against the advice of Ernest Joyce, within days of the party's arrival at Cape Evans, which resulted in the deaths of most of the dogs and demoralised the party; the loss of the Aurora when she broke from her moorings and was swept out to sea, with most of the expedition's stores and personnel still aboard, unable to return and therefore leaving an attenuated shore party stranded and dependent on what supplies they could scavenge from the debris left by earlier expeditions; the eventual successful laying of depots across the Barrier in the face of great adversity, and the deaths of three of the party, including Mackintosh. All this effort was ultimately futile, because Shackleton's cross-continental march never got started, after his ship, the Endurance, was beset and eventually crushed by the Weddell Sea ice. The story of how Shackleton and his party returned to safety has been hailed as an exemplar of leadership and fortitude, whilst the equally harrowing experiences of the Ross Sea Party have been relatively ignored.

Mackintosh's death

Following their arrival at Hut Point after the traumatic depot-laying journey, during which Arnold Spencer-Smith had died, Mackintosh and the other survivors recuperated for several weeks, unable to complete the journey to Cape Evans because of the condition of the sea ice which would have to be crossed. Eventually, Mackintosh said that he was prepared to risk the ice and, against the urgent advice of their comrades, on 8th May 1916 he and Victor Hayward decided to walk to Cape Evans. Shortly after they had moved out of the sight of their colleagues a severe blizzard developed which lasted for two days. Neither Mackintosh nor Hayward arrived at Cape Evans and no trace of either was ever found; all the indications were that they had either fallen through the ice, or that they had faced a possibly lingering death when the ice on which they had been walking had been blown out to sea during the blizzard. Whatever the final cause, after all they had been through on the depot-laying journey, and after the unstinting efforts of Joyce and the others to preserve Mackintosh's life, these deaths were heart-breakingly unnecessary and pointless.

Mackintosh Assessed

Aeneas Mackintosh has not, on the whole, been treated kindly by the biographers and historians of Antarctic adventure. Much of the blame for the Ross Sea Party's debacle has been laid at his door, citing his impetuousness, a stubborn insistence on his own way, his poor leadership and limited organising or interpersonal skills. Unfavourable comparisons have been made with Ernest Joyce, his nominal deputy, a much more experienced sledger and veteran of Antarctic conditions, whose advice Mackintosh sometimes ignored, but who was the driving force behind the depot-laying efforts and who took over the leadership of the party after Mackintosh's death. Some commentators, however, have recognised that from the time of Mackintosh's arrival in Australia he faced enormous difficulties, for which Shackleton can more fairly be blamed, and that many of the misfortunes that he and his party encountered thereafter were as much the consequence of ill-luck as poor judgement. There is wide agreement that Aeneas Mackintosh was a courageous man, determined to do do his duty or die in the attempt.

Sir Ernest Shackleton, on his return to civilisation, helped in the establishment of a trust fund to provide for Aeneas Mackintosh's family (Mackintosh was married with children, to whom he wrote a poignant farewell message from his tent on the Barrier). Mackintosh kept diaries during each of his polar adventures which, however, were not published until 1990, but have been extensively quoted in various memoirs and expedition accounts.

Sources

Ernest Shackleton: South William Heinemann, London 1919

Margery & James Fisher: Shackleton (biography) James Barrie Books, London 1957

Roland Huntford: Shackleton (biography) Hodder & Stoughton, London 1985

Lennard Bickel: Shackleton's Forgotten Men Random House (Pimlico Books), London 2001

Beau Riffenburgh: Nimrod Bloomsbury Publications, London 2004

Scott Polar Research Institute