Thursday 3 February 2022
6.30pm – 8.30pm
Dulwich College and Virtual
(Open to all and free to attend)
We invite OAs, current pupils, parents and friends of the College to join us to mark the centenary of Sir Ernest Shackleton OA’s death. It was on 5 January 1922 that Shackleton passed away at Grytviken, South Georgia whilst on the Shackleton-Rowett Antarctic Expedition on the Quest. This will be an enlightening evening of talks with the chance to see original archival objects and materials relating to that fateful final voyage in our specially curated Shackleton 100 Exhibition.
We are delighted to announce that one of our speakers will be Dr Jan Chojecki. As the grandson of John Quiller Rowett - the man who donated the James Caird to Dulwich and also financed Shackleton’s last Antarctic adventure - Jan is a wonderful link to Shackleton, and he has also kindly lent items to the exhibition from his own collection. Jan is the man behind the fantastic @QuestChronicle on Twitter, which provides day-by-day accounts of Shackleton’s final voyage on the Quest, and is also involved in the ReQuest100 Project to send ten Kent Scouts and Scout Leaders to Antarctica. His efforts have brought much-needed attention to this oft-forgotten chapter in Shackleton’s life.
We are also excited to hear from Camilla Nichol, a geologist and museum curator and, since 2014, Chief Executive of the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust. Whilst at the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow University, Camilla curated the Antarctic rock collections, including specimens collected from Elephant Island by the marooned men who set off on the ill-fated expedition on the Endurance in 1914. Later, after a record-breaking 38,000 people visited Antarctica between 2015 and 2016, Camilla published “Using Heritage to Engage Antarctic Tourists with Climate Change” and concluded that tourism is an effective way to increase awareness of the effects of climate change in the Antarctic region.
Finally, we will be joined by Archivist Freddie Witts, who started working at the College in 2019 after completing his Masters in Mediaeval History. Frequent visits to the ship Discovery whilst in Scotland, however, instilled an equal interest in Antarctic history, and whilst at the College Freddie has curated an exhibition on Shackleton, contributed to a short-film on the James Caird, and regularly leads public tours of Dulwich’s Antarcticana.
This event will be taking place in person at Dulwich College, but you will also be able to join us online from 7pm to hear the talk.
Online participants can register here to receive their joining link directly from Zoom.
If you have any questions, please email the Alleyn Club.
Please register here to attend this event in-person at the College.