Beyond Endurance: the life and collection of Sir James Wordie

Although best known for being the geologist on Shackleton's ill-fated Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, Sir James Mann Wordie was an academic, an avid book collector, and a keen mountaineer. His private library of polar books was given to the Library in 1959 and forms the heart of our polar collections.

Wordie's bookplate appears in most of the volumes in his collection. It reads 'He yt tholis overcomis'.

This motto also appears above a doorway in Advocates Close, Edinburgh. In Spirit of Chambers Journal, an article about inscriptions in the old town defines the motto:

“He that tholes – that is, he who endures without flinching – overcomes: he who, however sorely afflicted, however sorely tried with calamity, suffers his pains with patience and manly fortitude, triumphs over them, and is in reality the same as if it were not his fate to be so tried.”

As the young geologist on the Endurance expedition, Wordie did suffer calamity, require patience and show fortitude. He overcame the difficulties and went on to an illustrious academic career, becoming Master of St Johns College Cambridge, President of both the Royal Geographical Society and the British Mountaineering Council, and chairman of the Scott Polar Research Institute.

Who was Wordie?

James was born to John and Jane Wordie on 6 April 1889 in Partick, Glasgow. John ran the successful family haulage company, with its slogan "You'll find Wordie & Co. everywhere you go".

Family holidays to Switzerland resulted in Wordie's first alpine climb at the age of fourteen. He kept journals of these holidays and his later expeditions. His developing love for mountaineering may have influenced his choice to read Geology at Glasgow University.

In 1910, the same year both his parents died, Wordie graduated from the University of Glasgow with a Bachelor of Science degree with distinction. He entered St John's College, Cambridge as a postgraduate student. He went on to gain a first class degree in natural sciences.

He also pursued his love of climbing, joining in with the notorious, secret, night-climbers. Born from the ancient habit of sneaking in and out of colleges after curfew, the buildings of Cambridge provided tempting challenges for the climbing student. The risk of expulsion from the university if caught only heightened the danger. The high tower of Wordie's own St. John's College presented a favourite opportunity to climb.

Enduring 'Endurance'

At Cambridge, Wordie became friends with Frank Debenham and Raymond Priestley, both geologists from Robert Scott's last Antarctic expedition. Priestley also travelled with Ernest Shackleton on his Nimrod expedition in 1909. When a call came for volunteers for a new Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, Priestley proposed Wordie. The expedition planned to cross Antarctica at its narrowest point, from the Weddell Sea to the inlet of McMurdo Sound in the Ross Sea via the South Pole.

Only two days after leaving South Georgia on 5 December 1914, the expedition ship Endurance encountered pack ice. She worked slowly southwards to within about 200 miles of Vassel bay, her intended destination. By 24 January 1915 she was trapped in the ice. She stuck fast for 10 months. The ice conditions in the Weddell Sea were unexpected and hazardous. Chunks thrown up by the pressure and the sheer depth of the ice overriding the floes was astounding.

Wordie took a crate full of books on the expedition. Most were useful reference books on geology and quaternary science, including the reports from Scott's 'Discovery' expedition in 1904. A few were novels and light reading such as 'The Maid at Arms' by Robert W. Chambers.

On 27 October 1915 the pressure of the ice movement became too much. The ship's hull snapped. The 28 members of the Expedition were forced to move onto the ice, to camp in the tents that had been destined for the sledging parties. It took another three and a half weeks before Endurance finally sank, giving the men enough to time to set up camp and retrieve food and other valuables from her.

Life in the ice must have been a disappointment to Jock, as Wordie was known to his expedition colleagues. There were no rocks to collect and little geology to be done. He was forced to resort to unusual specimen hunting. He noted in his diary:

14 January 1916

"I am numbering off the contents of the Emperor penguins' stomachs as if they were land deposits. The stomach of a young Emperor caught on Tuesday night has given a good deal of amusement: there is about 1/2 lb of pebbles, the biggest having a maximum dimension of one inch."

On 9 April 1916 the members of the expedition all reached the edge of the ice and took to the rescued lifeboats. A weeklong voyage washed them ashore on Elephant Island, at the end of the Antarctic peninsula. After 48 hours without water or hot food, with the constant worry of being completely swamped, they were in a poor state. A search for a suitable camp ensued. A brief reconnaissance found a pebbly beach, backed with a glacier and steep mountain side. Cape Wild was a bleak, exposed place.

On 25 April Shackleton and five others set sail in the 'James Caird', one of the surviving small boats, to travel 800 miles through the Southern Ocean to South Georgia in hope of raising the alarm and affecting a rescue of the stranded expedition. This journey is one of the most remarkable feats of navigation in polar history.

Wordie amused himself by searching for specimens:

4 May

"Today I have at last got specimens collected from the rocks in situ – some dozen or so fairly representative rocks. The rocks are unfortunately very monotonous – metamorphic schists – and the amount of rock accessible is extremely small."

The other men knew of Wordie's collecting and would trade interesting rocks with him for tobacco.

On 30 August they were picked up by a Chilean relief ship. Bad weather meant boarding was a scramble and Wordie left behind many of his specimens. The few rocks he took with him are now in the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow.

Arriving back in Britain in November 1916, many of the men from the expedition enlisted straight away. Wordie joined the Lowland Brigade of the Royal Field Artillery. For much of 1917 he managed to combine his military commitments with work for the expedition, writing up his papers.

Wordie was seriously wounded in the battle of Lys at Armentieres in May 1918 and evacuated to England with a badly broken leg.

Looking North to Greenland

Wordie returned to Cambridge to a new appointment as lecturer in geology.

His leg healed, and in the summer of 1919, Wordie headed north with William Speirs Bruce and the Scottish Spitsbergen Syndicate to look for oil to exploit commercially. No oil was found, although they did discover substantial deposits of coal. He took the opportunity to climb the 1084m “Mount Monaco” whilst there.

He returned to the Spitsbergen again the following summer.

1921 saw Wordie once more north of the Arctic circle, this time visiting Jan Mayen Island, 300 miles east of Greenland. He climbed the 2,277m Beerenberg mountain.

In 1923 Wordie set off north once more. This trip to Greenland was unsuccessful. The boat became icebound. It must have been an uncomfortable experience for Wordie. He was always careful to ensure that his boats carried more food than they needed and sailed with experienced Norwegian captains who were used to the ice. His methods, of sailing in quickly, doing science for the couple of short summer months making full use of the continual daylight, and being back in time for the start of the Michaelmas term, is a model still followed by many student expeditions.

Leading and advising student expeditions to Greenland became a regular feature of Wordie's life.

Collecting books

Wordie's acquisitive nature is shown in this letter he wrote to the daughter-in-law of David Moore Lindsay, who wrote 'A voyage to the Arctic in the whaler Aurora'. Wordie had been given some artefacts by Lindsay and upon hearing of his death in 1958 wrote to the family with his condolences, but also asking if they would consider giving any other artefacts or books to him. He received a list and replied:

"Dear Mrs Lindsay,

It is very kind of you to write and I should like, if you don't think me too selfish, to have all the books you mention. Incidentally I keep a pile of duplicate books here so that arctic travellers can take whatever they do not have themselves. The books would therefore, I think, be in good hands at any rate now, if not later on.

…JMW"

The books were available to students and researchers directly from Wordie's study in St. John's College. The study was notoriously untidy but he could immediately find any book or report they required.

Climbing ivory towers

Wordie was elected Fellow at St. John's College in 1912, and was successively Tutor, Senior Tutor, and President before becoming Master of the College in 1952, a post he held until retirement in 1959. His teaching inspired and encouraged students to explore the natural world.

Wordie's influence extended beyond his college. He was a founder member of the Scott Polar Research Institute and its chairman from 1937 to 1955. He was a member from 1923 to 1949 of the Discovery Committee of the Colonial Office, a body undertaking oceanographical research in the Southern Ocean from its ships Discovery 1 and Discovery 2. He became president of the Royal Geographical Society, 1951 to1954, and Chairman of the British Mountaineering Council, 1953 to 1956. The Royal Society made him chairman of its International Geophysical Year committee in 1955. He was awarded medals by the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Royal Geographical Society, and the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. Wordie was knighted for services to polar exploration in 1957.

Supporting expeditions

During the Second World War, Wordie was recruited to help in a way that fitted his unique skill set. He was asked to advise on cold climate issues for the Admiralty. He directed production of the so called "Blue books", geographical handbooks for the Naval Intelligence Division. He was then co-opted into the secretive operation Tabarin to establish permanent bases on the strategically important Antarctic peninsula. Developing post-war into the Falkland Island Dependencies Survey (FIDS) one of these stations, on Winter Island, was named "Wordie House".

Wordie made a final trip to Antarctica in 1947. He was invited on a routine inspection of the FIDS facilities. They swung close to Elephant Island. Wordie chose not to land.

Wordie's last trip to the Arctic happened in 1954 with a flying visit to the British North Greenland expedition. It must have been strange arriving so quickly by flying boat when his previous trips had involved sailing for days along the coast to reach their research site.

Making Wordie's books available to everyone

When he retired from St John's College, Wordie had to leave the large Master's house and move to a smaller home. Having amassed what was probably the largest private polar collection extant at more than 4,600 items, his library needed a new home too. Wordie gifted it to the National Library of Scotland, along with much of his personal archive, notebooks from his Arctic expeditions, photographs and correspondence. By donating his collection to the Library he ensured its continued availability and access for all students of the polar world.