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Sir Hubert von Herkomer, R.A.

25 Nov

SIR HUBERT VON HERKOMER, RA 1849-1914

Apart from speaking on Antarctic subjects I give talks about Hubert von Herkomer.

Herkomer came from a modest background in Bavaria, his father, following the long Bavarian tradition of working in wood, was a wood carver. Secondarily to the general European unrest of 1848, the Herkomers decided to try their luck in the States when Hubert was three. The experiment was a complete disaster: cultural/language difficulties, resentment of immigrants, lack of interest in Herkomer senior’s carvings. The family gave up sailed to Southampton, England.

His father wanted Hubert to become an artist and taught Hubert to copy illustrations from German and English magazines from a young age. When he was nineteen Hubert began selling illustrations to the numerous London illustrated journals. Also, aged nineteen he had paintings accepted, both for the Royal Academy’s annual exhibition and for the prestigious Dudley Gallery, whose artists often went on to exhibit at the Watercolour Society). From this young age he was a success. He earned his living as an artist. He never lacked work.

He had a prodigiously enquiring, inventive and wide-ranging mind; he was active in engraving, enameling, woodcuts, oils, watercolours, mechanics (he helped design a motor car), zither and banjo performing, the theatre and an art school in Bushey, Hertfordshire. Here he taught students in the way that he was certain that artistic training should be organized – out of doors, using the imagination, being faithful to each student’s talent, not copying the teacher slavishly. This was in marked contrast to the traditions of the time, which was that a student should spend his initial two years of training copying ‘casts’, plaster casts of heads, feet etc. before being allowed to attempt ‘Life’ Drawings. In addition to all this activity Herkomer, his father and his uncles furnished a huge Gothic-type house in Bushey, which he hoped would be a celebration of his family forever. – This was the only house designed in England by the famous Bostonian architect H.H. Richardson.
To fund these numerous activities he made many portraits of the great and the good and commanded big prices for these. But his early portraits were produced free of charge – a way to attract attention and commissions. One of his early portraits was of John Ruskin (John Ruskin, 1879), a watercolour. Herkomer was thirty, Ruskin twice that age; Ruskin was enthused by Herkomer’s exuberance and zither playing. Herkomer by Ruskin’s brilliant conversation.
Herkomer did the painting in a few days, colouring the background with a colour wash, making a charcoal sketch of his subject and completing the fine colour detail of the face with a hog hair brush This painting has been described as one of the great portraits of the Victorian era and shows the insightfulness of the artist It seems to show the sadness in Ruskin’s eyes and sensitivity towards Ruskin’s inner turmoil at a time when mental illness (possibly a bipolar disorder), was beginning to cloud his life: it was at this time that Ruskin was unable to testify at the famous court case, Whistler against Ruskin, which took place soon after the portrait was painted..
Ruskin was aware of the brilliant intuition behind the portrait He nominated Herkomer to succeed him as the Slade Professor in Oxford

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Sir Hubert von Herkomer, R.A.

Portrait of John Ruskin.

 

 

 

 

 

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AMUNDSEN, FIRST TO THE SOUTH POLE

13 Nov

On our cruise to Norway and Spitsbergen we visited the Polar Museum in Tromso – many details of Roald Amundsen’s expeditions; lantern slides, original letters, photographs, newspaper articles, which gave information about his attempts at the North Pole and the North West Passage in 1906, and his plans for a further attempt to go north in 1909. Also information about his successful expedition to the South Pole in 1911

 I was of course, particularly interested by Amundsen’s change of plans, his decision to sail south from Madeira in September 1910 instead on north: Why did he do this and why did he keep the plans secret? The explanation was funding. 
 In 1910 he wrote that although the plan to take ‘Fram’ south rather than north could be interpreted as a change of plan, this was not the case; it was actually an extension of the original plan, an extension needed so he could be sure of attracting sufficient funds and equipment for the long drift on the polar ice. He wrote that he had actually changed his plans in 1909, secondary to the announcement that the Americans, Peary and Cook had claimed to have got to the North Pole. This claim would have deterred donors from giving Amundsen the necessary funds for his northern plans. Something else was needed to attract public attention and interest in order to attract the large amount of money still needed.
In August 1910, he wrote to Nansen (who he had not informed before sailing), in the same vein. He started his letter; ‘It is not easy to send you these lines, but there is no way to avoid it, and therefore I will just have to tell it to you straight. When the news from the Cook, and later the Peary, expeditions came to my knowledge last autumn, I instantly understood that this was the death sentence for my own plans. I immediately concluded that after this I could not be expected to secure the financial support I required for the expedition’. He said that the Norwegian Parliament’s decisions to decline requests for support proved him right. He did not want to abandon his plans but he realised that the South Pole, the main remaining challenge in the Polar Regions, was the one to excite public interest. He had not told Nansen of his plans because he was afraid that Nansen would stop him. He had no animosity against Scott and wanted to meet him.
He wrote that he was sending the King the same message and that his brother would make a public announcement a few days after Nansen had received the message.
He did not go back to the ‘long drift on the polar ice’ and the scientific expedition he had planned to the north. But his achievement in reaching the South Pole first was magnificent. He attracted world fame, international attention and he lectured widely to fascinated audiences.

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31 Oct

The Maud

The Maud, the ship built for Roald Amundsen for his attempt to reach the North Pole, has been finally freed from her icy prison after eighty –six years.
She had a tough existence. In 1917 Amundsen planned a further scientific expedition. He was inspired by Fridtjof Nansen’s 1890s expedition on the Fram, and aimed to sail through the Northeast Passage (via the Baring Strait between Russia and Alaska and into the icy labyrinths of north Canada), allowing the Maud to be frozen in pack ice north of the Baring Strait.
The pack ice formed early in 1918 and within three months Maud was frozen in for the winter. The expedition eventually proceeded eastward in August 1819, only to be caught again for a second winter in September 1919.
Amundsen then decided to return to Nome in Alaska for a refit. Having sailed through the Northeast Passage he arrived in Nome in July 1920 and after her refit Maud set out again, only to become stopped by ice in the Baring Strait for a third winter in the ice. Amundsen later left the Maud for an (unsuccessful) attempt to fly across the Arctic
After six years the Maud ended up in Nome, Alaska, and was sold to the Hudson Bay Company. In the winter of 1926 she was frozen in, in Cambridge Bay. She sank there in 1930.
In 1990 Maud was sold by the Hudson Bay Co. to Asker, a municipality near Oslo, with the hope that she would be returned to the town, but the plans proved too expensive could not be acted on.
Now she as been salvaged! Jan Wanggaard, who builds Viking longships has worked for six long years between July and September (when the ice melts and the temperature is above zero), to place airbags under the Maud and lift her slowly onto a barge. She is to be transport to Oslo and is in remarkable condition considering her decades in the sea – the sea is so cold that the timbers have been protected from microbial attacks; her hulk is in one piece.
In Oslo she will be displayed in a purpose built museum. Here she can be admired and revered.

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THE EDGAR EVANS CLUB

27 Sep

I was so pleased to attend the first meeting of the EDGAR EVANS CLUB in Portsmouth last weekend. Rob de Silva, a former Royal Naval Physical Training Instructor and Ginge Fullen, a Royal Naval Reserve Clearance Diver, have just started the club. Edgar Evans was a trainer of the Portsmouth Field Gun Crew, which won the Field Gun Competition in Olympia in 1906/7. Both Ginge and Rob were members of the 1999 Portsmouth crew.

Edgar Evans is now, and quite rightly, at last recognised as one of the heroes of Scott’s expeditions. But this acknowledgement has taken years.
The news of the deaths of the 5-man British party on their return from the Pole did not reach England until 1913, when Edgar was denigrated, by some, as being the main cause of the fatal deterioration.
Ah well for him who died, not ever knew
How his o’er wearied stumbling drew
Death’s snare about his friends to hold them fast
A ‘Medical Expert’ thought that Edgar could not stand the monotony of the return because of his lack of education. The Players cigarette cards of the time, (that seem to depict everyone connected with Antarctic ventures), missed out Edgar completely. St Katherine’s Press had a booklet (with photos,) of four heroes only.
The effect on his family must have been devastating.
My feeling is that, in addition to the privation suffered by all Scott’s party: malnutrition, hypothermia, dehydration, vitamin deficiency etc, Edgar suffered from blood poisoning from a cut in his hand that he sustained when he shortened a sledge prior to the final attempt at the Pole in 1912.

Rob and Ginge have opened the Edgar Evans Club in recognition of Edgar’s substantial contribution to both Scott’s Antarctic ventures of the early 1900s. The event started really impressively with a tug-o war on Bramble Bank. Bramble Bank is in the central Solent and is only uncovered at low water spring tides (at other times presenting a significant navigational hazard). It is known for an annual cricket match, which takes place when the bank is exposed but which never lasts long because the tide returns! And on this occasion there was also a magnificent tug-o-war, in which everyone got a thorough soaking, including the North Portsmouth M.P. Penny Mordant
The dinner was on the Victory. The event started a little late with some of the guests still bit damp. But it was a wonderful occasion, in the Senior Rates Mess in all its glory. A tour of the ship finished the evening

All the proceeds went to a local children’s’ charity. This has a link to Edgar in that Edgar lived in the same street as the children’s’ play centre which is the dedicated charity of the club. The Edgar Evans club supplies funds for trips and entertainments for example activity breaks in Devon.

I hope that there will be many more such occasions

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ARCTIC CONVOYS

4 Sep

One of my talks is on ‘The Voyages of Discovery’. ‘Discovery’ was built for Scott’s Antarctic expedition of 1901-1904. She was sold on after the expedition returned to England.

It was a surprise to find how many reincarnations she has had – she became a cargo vessel for the Hudson Bay Company of Canada, carrying textiles, tools & mirrors to barter for furs, she was involved in the Whaling Industry, became an oceanographic and research vessel, returned to the Antarctic with Douglas Mawson, was a training ship on the Thames and is now enjoying honourable (and relative), retirement at Dundee Point, where she is visited by thousands.

In WW1 in 1915, she was involved in supplying Archangel. Archangel was the only Russian port available to the West for the transport of supplies to Russia (the Germans controlled the Baltic, the Turkish Navy controlled access to the Black Sea via the Mediterranean). Discovery travelled in convoy via the North Sea to the Barents Sea and Archangel The approach to the White Sea was littered with German minefields. As ‘Steamer 141’ she went to Archangel between June and September 1915. Ten ships in the convoys were lost in these months. In the whole heroic strategy, 110 ships were lost, a third of the total. The courage of the seamen was phenomenal.

This transit was to be repeated in WW2. Winston Churchill called the journey the Worst Journey in the World. (a homage to Cherry Garrard’s book of this name). British and American ships supplied Archangel between 1941 and 1945. As in the WW1 the risks were terrible. The convoys sailed round German occupied Norway; the men endured freezing temperatures (minus 40°C), U boat attacks, and bombardments. The first of these convoys reached Archangel in September seventy-five 75 years ago. They provided supplies, moral support and eventually airplanes to the Soviet Union, as Hitler attacked.

These heroic men were celebrated recently in Archangel in events to mark the anniversary. Eight veterans were feted. The Princess Royal attended and visited British war graves.

No praise is too great.

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Bruce, South Orkneys and the Argentine

26 Aug

On the Scotia expedition of 1902-04, Bruce made a Base in the South Orkneys. From here he led a disciplined scientific programme, which included a considerable emphasis on meteorology and magnetology.

When, after the first year he sailed north for refuelling he decided to by-pass the Falklands, coal was too expensive at 49/9d per ton (the expedition funds were virtually used up) and he sailed on to Argentina where coal was half the price. He ‘regretted very much that owing to this I was driven out of a British Colony and forced to refit in a foreign country’.

He was however determined that the work he had started should continue. He wanted the South Orkneys to be a permanent observatory. However in London, the Foreign Office and the Lords of the Admiralty were uninterested in small islands in the South Atlantic of no obvious strategic importance and Bruce had little hope of getting long-term financial support from private backers, so his only option was to approach the authorities in Argentina. On arrival he wrote to the resident British Minister, Mr W.H D Haggard emphasising the importance of maintaining the observatory and suggesting that the Argentine government should continue the work. The Argentine Government responded with remarkable alacrity, publishing a Presidential Decree that authorised the Director of the Argentine Meteorological Service, Dr Walter G Davis, to ‘take over the installation offered by Mr William S Bruce in the South Orkney Islands and to establish a meteorological and magnetic observatory thereon’. The transfer was officially agreed. Dr Davis wrote to Bruce to thank him. The British Foreign Secretary The Marquess of Lansdowne approved the decision. So, the door was thrown open for more than a century of claim and counter claim. Argentina makes a claim on the basis of a continuously occupied scientific base, i.e. a permanent settlement; this claim is strengthened by the Argentineans designating one of their staff as postmaster for the South Orkney Islands – a postal service is internationally recognised as demonstrating effective administration of a territory over which a claim has been made. The stamp that was used was the stamp of the Argentine republic, British claims really stem from the ‘Letters Patent’ of 1908 (amended in 1917), which created the Falklands Island Dependency of the South Orkneys, South Shetlands, South Georgia and Graham Land and a section of Antarctica south of 50° S latitude and between the 20th and 80th degrees W longitude. This forms the legal framework of the current claim.

Bruce believed in international cooperation between scientists. There were other explorations in the Antarctic in these years and Bruce aimed for cooperation and amalgamation of results between the scientists. Indeed the expedition’s meteorological work was pivotal; thousands of meteorological recordings were made. These laid the foundation to our current understanding that the behaviour of sea-ice in the Weddell Sea affects the amount of rainfall in Southern South America: It can be argued that Bruce was the father of the modern network of coordinated work and observations in Antarctica.

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Norway and Spitsbergen

7 Aug

I recently went on a Fred Olsen cruise to Norway and Spitsbergen. I had always wanted to see the Norwegian fjords and am particularly interested in Spitsbergen because of William Speirs Bruce’s long involvement in the archipelago.
I was not disappointed.The cruise was well organised, the crew efficient, the invited lecturers excellent.
I was allowed to give a talk on Bruce and to my surprise, quite a number of the audience, being Scottish, knew of him and his life
The fjords are really indescribably beautiful and the five Norwegian towns we visited were fascinating in different ways but I was. of course,keen to see the Spitsbergen settlements that Bruce visited in relation to his company, the Scottish Spitsbergen Syndicate(S.S.S). Bruce wanted to create a successful prospecting company for coal, other minerals (notably oil), and even develop a hotel based tourist industry. The S.S.S eventually claimed vast areas of Spitsbergen under the ‘terra nullius’ law; this meant that claims could be made in the island merely by staking out the area to be claimed and informing the appropriate government.
Bruce was particularly impressed by the successful development in Longyearbyen which he visited in 1912 on a S.S.S.expedition. Longyearbyen was developed in 1905 by successful American entrepreneurs John Longyear and Frederick Ayer, who established the Arctic Coal Company which mines coal in Advent Bay close to Longyearbyen. The two men sold the company to a Norwegian state enterprise in 1916 and it continues to this day. Longyearbyen is the biggest settlement in the Svalbard islands and has over 2.000 inhabitants. This sort of development was precisely what Bruce dreamed of, but failed to achieve.
Another fascinating Spitsbergen settlement is Pyramiden. Bruce visited Spitsbergen many times and when, after the Paris Peace Conference at the end of World War 1, Spitsbergen was placed under the jurisdiction of Norway, the incensed directors of the S.S.S. organised a big expedition to confirm their large Spitsbergen claims. There are many 1919 images of boreholes being drilled near Pyramiden. Pyramiden is now a deserted Russian mining town although it was a self sufficient development of over 1,000 inhabitants, originally run by Sweden, taken over by Russia in 1927 and closed in 1998. But the the main centre is painted and maintained regularly, parades could take place in the central square, a statute of Lenin looks over the complex, one room houses the world’s northernmost grand piano (and birds have happy homes on the window ledges).Recently a hotel has opened and an excellent Russian interpreter and guide is based for much of the year in the ‘ghost’ town.
On Bruce’s 1919 expedition, coal was found but not in commercially exploitable amounts and the S.S.S s did not have the funds to pursue their claims.
Bruce was certain that Spitsbergen had oil but could not locate it. The Spitsbergen Treaty of 1919 expires in 2019. Oil has been found. Many countries are now interested in Spitsbergen. Bruce was right in his ideas

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The Northwest Passage

21 Jun

When, in 1845, Sir John Franklin (KCH FRGS RN), attempted to navigate and chart the Northwest Passage, all of the crew of 24 officers and 105 men died. Their poignant memorial is in Waterloo Place, London, outside the Athenaeun Club. All the men who died are listed on the memorial. Franklin’s ships were ‘Erebus’ and “Terror”, names now permanently remembered, following Sir James Clark Ross’ decision to call the two volcanoes on Ross Island, (one active), by these names. These volcanoes were a powerful backdrop to the British expeditions of the early 1900s.
Franklin’s men died of starvation, hypothermia, tuberculosis and scurvy. Franklin himself died in June 1847; some two years after the expedition had left England. The men must have suffered terribly as they attempted to return to civilisation. In their desperation they are said to have, reasonably, resorted to cannibalism –this report by the Scottish explorer Dr John Rae, enraged Franklin’s widow and Victorian society and condemned Dr Rae to ignominy. Many ships were involved in a search for the lost men. Eventually more ships and men were lost looking for Franklin, than on the expedition itself.
Now cruise ships are to sail along the Northwest Passage as the Arctic summer sea ice diminishes. Polar Bears are losing ground. Ice volume decreased by 3% per year between 1979 to 2014. But those who see the melting ice sheets press the need for a Climate Change Accord, emphasising again, that those human activities that contribute to climate change must be modified.

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Recognition for William Speirs Bruce

30 May

I have just spent another five days in Edinburgh; at the National Museum and the Edinburgh University Library, continuing my researches on William Speirs Bruce. I find it truly amazing how much information there is on the man, but how little his name is recognised — even in Edinburgh!
Now however, he has received some public recognition. His major contribution to Science was the ‘Scotia’ Expedition, which went to the Weddell Sea and wintered in the South Orkneys. The expedition was successful scientifically: discoveries that were made changed the way the geography of Antarctica was understood, the seas around the Antarctic were explored, a scientific base was set up on South Georgia (which continues today), 1100 species of animal were catalogued of which 212 of them were previously unknown, miles & miles of unknown ocean were explored.
When he returned to Edinburgh Bruce needed to house Scotia’s Antarctic data and specimens. Also, he needed to amalgamate this collection with collections he had made previously on five visits to Arctic. He took a storage area, contiguous with The Surgeons Hall of the Royal College of Surgeons, which he named the Scottish Ocenographical Laboratory, and from here, he worked endlessly and tirelessly in the preparation of six scientific volumes, and a log book,the seventh,which was on the day to day activities of the voyage, This was a Herculean task and took years and years of work. The scientific volumes were published between 1909 and 1920. Bruce’s Log, the narrative of the voyage, was not published until 1992.
The Oceanographic Laboratory had to be closed due to lack of funds before Bruce died in 1921 and, after his death, Bruce drifted into obscurity in the minds of the general public,
Now however, and at last, Bruce has been recognised by the naming of a laboratory at the British Antarctic Survey Research Station on Signy Island in the South Georgia Islands. A commemorative plaque has been erected in the laboratory. The news was given to Bruce’s great, great grandsons at a meeting hosted by the Oban-based Scottish Association for Marine Science in its William Speirs Bruce lecture room.
Dr John Dudeney, an Antarctic specialist, made the approach to the Brutish Antarctic Survey. It is a long needed recognition for one, who struggled ceaselessly, and with insufficient funds, to draw public attention to the wonders and opportunities of Antarctica.

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The Scottish Spitsbergen Syndicate

20 May

For the past weeks (months) I have been writing the chapter on Bruce and the Scottish Spitsbergen Syndicate. It is a most complicated subject involving ambition, hard work, competition, geopolitics and, ultimately, disappointment.
Bruce had high hopes of a successful mining enterprise in Spitsbergen, which he had visited with Prince Albert of Monaco (a noted oceanographer), in 1898 and 1899. In 1898 he had found oil shale, coal and gypsum in. His mind turned to the development of a commercial enterprise.
A major advantage was that Spitsbergen was terra nullius – a term meaning that the right to hold and mine an area could be obtained simply by staking out a plot and registering the claim with the claimant’s country (no taxes, no harbour dues). Bruce hoped, as did others, that the archipelago had an untapped quantity of natural resources. He knew that a commercial shipment had been made by a Norwegian ship in 1899 and that thereafter American, Norwegian, Russian, Dutch and three English companies had staked claims
An analysis of the coal that Bruce had brought from his Spitsbergen visits was very encouraging. The samples were said to resemble Yorkshire coal (good household fuel) and later assessed as comparable in quality with coal from Glamorgan, South Wales.
He issued a prospectus for a prospecting company in September 1908 ‘for private circulation only’ under his name and that of J. Victor Burn Murdoch. Shares were sold, £4,000 (only) was raised. He was to visit Spitsbergen on behalf of the Syndicate six times between 1909 and 1920. On the first visit, claims for large areas of Spitsbergen and adjacent islands were made: ‘The land between latitude 77°56’N and 78°25’N and from longitude18° E to Storfjord is the property of the Scottish Spitsbergen Syndicate’. Hopes, interest and enthusiasm were high. But the first expeditions used up most of the Syndicate’s reserves and subsequent reports on coal and other mineral deposits were disappointing. The difficulties of even approaching Spitsbergen were vividly demonstrated in some of the visits where sea ice held up progress. Excitement about the project diminished and for the remainder of his life Bruce and the Syndicate were involved in endless, difficult appeals for cash.
There were serious concerns also about ‘foreign powers’ taking over Spitsbergen, with the consequent dangers of the loss of terra nullius, which might involve Brice’s and other British companies paying taxes. Repeated appeals were made to the newspapers, to the British Government (with the support of Scottish M.P.s) and to the general public in an attempt to whip up both support and patriotic indignation. Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, was disappointingly unhelpful, writing that he had discussed the matter with his advisors, who had given him good reason for thinking it would be useless for the government to assert a claim for Spitsbergen, even if it was possible to do so. (Churchill was to stick with this opinion, writing in 1917 that there was no naval reason to consider the annexation of Spitsbergen, particularly as a formal annexation would require an armed force to safeguard the claim which would not, in itself, affect whatever possibility existed of the island being used by enemies). The Government clearly had plans in the bigger sphere of international geopolitics and was not going to prejudice these plans for the sake of a small company, with no trading surplus and based on a small archipelago, which, the Government considered, had no commercial or strategic advantage.
The 1914 expedition was delayed by severe ice conditions. When the expedition finally reached Green Harbour on 12 August 1914, they heard of the outbreak of war. The Syndicates activities were put on hold for the duration of hostilities.
The future of Spitsbergen was finally decided after the war as an addendum to the Versailles Treaty of 1918. The Spitsbergen Treaty was agreed in February 1920 when Spitsbergen was ceded to Norway. Ratification of the treaty did not occur until 1925 when the Norwegian flag was raised in the island. By this time Bruce had died.
A large, scientific expedition was made with Bruce in charge in 1919. Some houses were erected with a view to tourism and mine explorations were made, but again the reports were disappointing from a commercial viewpoint, the syndicates finances were in a poor condition, the company never really developed after this time.
Bruce became seriously ill in 1920 and died in 1921. He must have been devastated and bitter that his Herculean efforts had failed. The company continued until 1953. Over the years it had been unable to keep up development of its properties and claims. A technical report for a possible buyer, Captain C.W.E. Urmston, by Powell Duffryn of South Wales estimated that the cost of developing the claims would be nearly £2,000,000 A sad end for the company after such an optimistic beginning.

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