Arnold Spencer-Smith

Spencer-Smith was born on 17 March 1883 in Streatham, Surrey, England. He shared his birthday, 17 March (St. Patrick's Day), with Captain Lawrence Oates[2]. He was educated at Westminster City School,[3] King's College London and Queens' College, Cambridge 1903-1906. He did not attend his exams and was given a pass degree BA in history.[1] He was a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

After a few years teaching at Merchiston Castle School, Edinburgh, Spencer-Smith was ordained as deacon into the Scottish Episcopal Church in 1910 at St Mary's Cathedral, Edinburgh. He served as curate of Christ Church, Morningside (1910-1912) and All Saints, Edinburgh (1913-1914).[4] He was ordained as priest at All Saints' Church Edinburgh shortly before leaving to join the Aurora.[5]

Spencer-Smith's interest in travelling to Antarctica may have been kindled as a student at Woodbridge Grammar School in Suffolk. A 1899 school lecture given by a W.W. Mumford on “Arctic Travel & Adventure” touched on the travels of explorers in the Arctic regions, some who perished in their attempts to reach the North Pole and others who lost their lives searching for the North-West passage. Spencer-Smith wrote a report of the lecture for his school magazine. [6] However, it is unclear how he came to join Shackleton's expedition. One version is that he had wanted to enlist in the army at the outbreak of war, but as a clergyman was barred from combatant service. He therefore volunteered himself to Shackleton as a replacement for one of the original party who had left for active service.[7] After arrival in Antarctica his unfamiliarity with polar work and limited physical stamina were in evidence during the first (January–March 1915) depot-laying journey, before he was sent back to base by expedition leader Aeneas Mackintosh.[8] During the 1915 winter season he worked at the Cape Evans base, mainly in the darkroom where he sometimes held religious services.[9]

The circumstances of the expedition, after the depletion of the shore party following the loss of SY Aurora in May 1915, meant that Spencer-Smith was required for the main depot journey to the Beardmore Glacier during the 1915–16 summer season, irrespective of his physical limitations.[10] In this he showed no reluctance and worked tirelessly. However, worn down by the preliminary work of hauling stores up to the base depot at Minna Bluff during the four-month period September–December 1915, and the effects of scurvy, he was unable to sustain the physical effort required on the main depot-laying journey south, and collapsed before the Beardmore was reached. Thereafter he had to be carried on the sledge, unable to help himself and dependent on Ernest Wild for his most basic needs.[11] The party nevertheless completed its depot-laying mission and struggled back northward in worsening weather conditions, each man growing weaker as scurvy took hold, and progress forward was with acute difficulty. Spencer-Smith, uncomplaining but in the latter stages occasionally delirious,[12] died on the Barrier on 9 March 1916, aged 32, two days before the safety of Hut Point was finally reached. He was buried in the ice.[13]

Spencer-Smith’s condition, along with his expedition leader Aeneas Mackintosh, weakened well before the other man in their three-man hauling party, Ernest Wild. A logical reason why Mackintosh and Spencer-Smith succumbed to scurvy before Wild was their ‘dislike’ of seal meat. At one time some freshly cooked seal meat was brought out for these three men when they were on the Barrier but Wild was the only man to take full advantage of this opportunity to eat fresh food. Both Mackintosh and Spencer-Smith exhibited their dislike of seal meat at this time, as they had before during the previous winter when at the Cape Evans hut.[14] However, Spencer-Smith's health was poor. On 16 February 1915, in his early days of sledging he noted: " I am a little strained on the left side intercostals, I hope, no heart, and shall have to be careful."[15] In August of 1915, before the second season of sledging started, Spencer-Smith was seen to be 'perfectly sound in body and limb' but did have ‘an intermittent heart’. He was told he could go sledging but if he felt any effects of his heart he was to turn back at the earliest possible moment.[16]

Arnold Spencer-Smith was unmarried. He dedicated a final diary entry, 7 March 1916, to his father, mother, brothers and sisters. His sister Joan Elizabeth Spencer-Smith (1891–1965) was a notable New Zealand Anglican deaconess and lecturer.

Posthumously he was awarded the Polar Medal in silver.

Spencer-Smith's diaries are held at Canterbury Museum, Christchurch and the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge. In the early 1950s a priest of the Anglican Diocese of Dunedin Rev. A.J.T. Fraser (1911-1973) [17] wrote to Joan Spencer-Smith asking about Arnold. Joan sent Arnold's diaries to Mr. Fraser who was intending to write a book about Arnold, these diaries are now at Canterbury Museum. Arnold's diary provided inspiration for the second single from NZ alt-folk act Bond Street Bridge[18] album 'The Explorers Club: Antarctica[19], the song deals with the stoicism and courage the explorers of Antarctica's Heroic Age showed in the face of almost indescribable adversity. The song's title is taken from the personal diary of Spencer-Smith. "When Spencer-Smith died out there on the Barrier, bleeding from the gums and bent double with scurvy, his comrades read his diary and they saw his personal motto inscribed there on the flyleaf: 'It's all in the game - play on!'" [20]

In 1999 a team of investigators entered Captain Scott's hut at Cape Evans, and found a wallet with three photographs of a camping expedition in it. After extensive investigations it was established that this wallet had belonged to Arnold Spencer-Smith.[21] The wallet, mislaid in 1915, was thus found after 84 years.[1]

In 2016 NZ Antarctic Heritage Trust conservators working in Herbert Ponting’s darkroom at Scott’s Cape Evans base, discovered a small box of cellulose nitrate negatives from the Ross Sea Party. [22]. These negatives are most probably Spencer-Smith's.[23]

There is a memorial cairn on Antarctica remembering Spencer-Smith, Hayward and Macintosh. He is commemorated by Cape Spencer-Smith on White Island at 78°00′S 167°27′E. A service to commemorate Spencer-Smith was held on 8 March 1981 at the church of St. Mary the Virgin, Addington, Christchurch.[24] On 6 March 2016 a memorial mass was held at All Saints' Edinburgh (where Spencer-Smith was curate). In 2016 a memorial plaque was dedicated at Merchiston Castle School where Spencer-Smith taught. On 9 March 2019 a memorial service was held at All Saints' Church Dunedin; the church where Spencer-Smith's cousin Rev. Canon A.P.A. Gaze was vicar. Spencer-Smith's chalice and paten were used at the 1981 and the 2019 memorial services; the chalice and paten are in the care of All Saints' Church, Dunedin.[25]. A stained glass window in memory of the Ross Sea Party and in honour of Arnold Spencer-Smith is being made for All Saints.[26] [27] [28] [29]