Tag Archives: William Colbeck

Captain Colbeck’s plaque

Further to my piece on Captain Colbeck’s eggs, I was delighted to be invited to the unveiling of a plaque in memory of William Colbeck on the site of his old house at Inchmery Road in Catford, south-east London. Organised by Sandra Margolies, Colbeck’s grand-daughter, the event was attended by many of Colbeck’s descendants – as well as relatives of his former shipmate on the SY Morning, Alfred Cheetham, and of E. A. Wilson, the zoologist and junior surgeon on the Discovery expedition and chief of the scientific staff on the Terra Nova expedition.

Memorial plaque to William Colbeck
Memorial plaque to William Colbeck, Inchmery Road, Catford

There were speeches by Kate Richardson, of the Culverley Green Residents’ Association; Donald Lamont, chairman of the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust; and Sir Steve Bullock, Mayor of Lewisham. The plaque was ‘unveiled’ by Kevin Fewster, Director of Royal Museums Greenwich. Everyone was given copies of the burgee of the Pirate Yacht Club, Bridlington, taken by Colbeck on the Southern Cross expedition,  to wave.

The event concluded with a small reception, at which a rather spectacular cake, decorated with penguins (identified by David Wilson as baby Emperors and adult Gentoos), was served.

Cake served at the unveiling of a memorial plaque to William Colbeck
Cake decorated with penguins, served at the unveiling of a memorial plaque to William Colbeck

Captain Colbeck’s eggs

A couple of years ago, I wrote a piece for this site about a series of objects from Antarctica that had been collected by the Horniman Museum and – in several cases – subsequently disposed of.  I also wrote a longer essay for the Horniman’s website about the objects. In the latter piece, I noted that we had been unable to find some of the better-documented objects: several birds’ eggs donated by a person named in the registers as C. T. Colbeck (see also here). I was, therefore, delighted to receive a tweet a couple of weeks ago from my former colleague Justine Aw, saying that the eggs had been found whilst working through the Horniman’s collections following a collection review. Continue reading Captain Colbeck’s eggs

Antarctic relics

Charles Sergeant Jagger’s bronze statue of Sir Ernest Shackleton, c.1932, Royal Geographical Society, London. Photo: © Rupert Shepherd
Charles Sergeant Jagger’s bronze statue of Sir Ernest Shackleton, c.1932, Royal Geographical Society, London. Photo: © Rupert Shepherd

100 years  ago today, Sir Ernest Shackleton’s Endurance left Plymouth for the Antarctic. The story of his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition – how the Endurance was trapped by ice,  and drifted for hundred of miles before being crushed; how her crew camped for months on the drifting ice, then rowed for 6 days to reach the desolate and uninhabited Elephant Island; and how Shackleton and five companions sailed an open boat across 800 miles of the world’s stormiest seas before Shackleton, Crean and Worsley walked non-stop for 36 miles across the icy mountains of South Georgia to fetch help – is well known, and I’ll say no more about it here.

But the centenary of Shackleton’s departure also seemed an ideal time to publish an article on the Horniman Museum’s website about the Antarctic objects which the museum once owned. Continue reading Antarctic relics