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Shackleton items from the Archives

Articles by Aeneas Mackintosh

The following 2 articles are by Aeneas Mackintosh:

About the author

Aeneas Lionel Acton Mackintosh was born on 1 July 1879 in Tirhut, India. He was educated at Bedford Modern School and in 1894, joined the Merchant Navy, serving in the skysail yard ships Cromdale and Mount Stewart, in which he advanced to third officer.
In 1899, he was appointed junior officer in RMS Victoria of the P & O Company, obtaining his first officer's and master's certificates.

Mackintosh was granted leave to join the British Antarctic Expedition, 1907 - 1909 (leader Ernest Henry Shackleton), as navigator and second officer of Nimrod on her initial voyage to Lyttelton, New Zealand, and later as a member of the shore staff. While unloading stores at McMurdo Sound, he lost his right eye in an accident and returned in Nimrod to New Zealand for medical treatment before rejoining the shore party in January 1908.

After the expedition, Mackintosh was despatched by Shackleton as a member of an unsuccessful gold-mining expedition to the Carpathians and spent three months on the Cocos Islands in the South Pacific in search of Spanish treasure.

In 1914, he resigned his post as assistant secretary to the Imperial Merchant Service Guild in Liverpool to join the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition [Ross Sea Party], 1914 - 1917 (leader Ernest Henry Shackleton). Mackintosh was appointed Captain of Aurora and leader of the Ross Sea party, with the task of laying a chain of depots across the Ross Ice Shelf towards the Beardmore Glacier, providing supplies for Shackleton's trans-polar party. Landing at Cape Evans in the summer of 1915, Aurora was prevented by fast ice from anchoring off Cape Royds and was then blown out to sea in a storm, leaving a party of ten to establish a base with inadequate stores and equipment.

Against all odds, the men laid their quota of depots across the Ross Ice Shelf as far south as Mount Hope, but Victor Hayward and Mackintosh died on the return journey while crossing sea ice between Hut Point and Cape Evans in May 1916.

Published work: Shackleton's Lieutenant; the Nimrod Diary of A.L.A. Mackintosh, British Antarctic Expedition 1907-09 edited by Stanley Newman Polar Publications Ltd (1990)

Rebecca Stancombe.