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James Murray (1865-1914)
Details
James Murray (1865-1914)
Two autograph letters signed to Lady Shackleton, Froxfield, Hants, 13 and 23 February 1913, 3 pages, 4to (letter of 23 February with tear to vertical centrefold and loss to upper right margin, without loss of text).
PROVENANCE:
Lady Shackleton, and thence by descent.
Two fine letters by a Shackleton lieutenant, responding to the disaster of Scott's Southern Party. 'Everybody who knows the conditions appears agreed that no blizzard could account for it, and concludes it must have been scurvy. Very likely', noting how close Shackleton's own party came to a similar disaster, expressing restraint at criticising those who have 'paid for their blunders with their lives', but questioning why there was no serious relief expedition for Scott's Southern Party, something 'far more important than a supporting party on the outward march ... I realised the importance of sending relief to Sir Ernest's party, and would have had a party far south, but was forcibly prevented by Captain Evans', criticising Scott's diary as 'unconvincing' and 'not spontaneous ... I hope for the real human truth from Wilson's diary, if that ever comes to light', describing as 'very pathetic' Scott's remarks on being 'unable to account' for the shortage of fuel in the depots, observing 'He was evidently conscious of blundering somewhere', questioning the inevitability of Oates's death, and commending Shackleton's public restraint on the subject. A second letter refers to an article on Scott's expedition, 'which becomes more sickening the longer one thinks about it', and mentions a proposed newspaper article and lecture on the subject.
Murray's letter is clear evidence of the feeling within the polar community at the news of the Scott disaster, somewhat at odds with the public mood of deep mourning for heroic failure. The bitterness of his criticism presages the combative disagreements between 'Scott' and 'Shackleton' camps over the following decade, which led for example to Scott's surgeon Atkinson even ten years later publicly denying the presence of scurvy in the Southern Party, whilst privately admitting the possibility. Murray was the biologist with the Nimrod, and was provisionally placed in charge of the whole expedition in the event of Shackleton and Lt Jameson Boyd Adams both failing to return from their southern journeys. He died on an expedition with the Canadian explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson in the Beaufort Sea in 1914.
Two autograph letters signed to Lady Shackleton, Froxfield, Hants, 13 and 23 February 1913, 3 pages, 4to (letter of 23 February with tear to vertical centrefold and loss to upper right margin, without loss of text).
PROVENANCE:
Lady Shackleton, and thence by descent.
Two fine letters by a Shackleton lieutenant, responding to the disaster of Scott's Southern Party. 'Everybody who knows the conditions appears agreed that no blizzard could account for it, and concludes it must have been scurvy. Very likely', noting how close Shackleton's own party came to a similar disaster, expressing restraint at criticising those who have 'paid for their blunders with their lives', but questioning why there was no serious relief expedition for Scott's Southern Party, something 'far more important than a supporting party on the outward march ... I realised the importance of sending relief to Sir Ernest's party, and would have had a party far south, but was forcibly prevented by Captain Evans', criticising Scott's diary as 'unconvincing' and 'not spontaneous ... I hope for the real human truth from Wilson's diary, if that ever comes to light', describing as 'very pathetic' Scott's remarks on being 'unable to account' for the shortage of fuel in the depots, observing 'He was evidently conscious of blundering somewhere', questioning the inevitability of Oates's death, and commending Shackleton's public restraint on the subject. A second letter refers to an article on Scott's expedition, 'which becomes more sickening the longer one thinks about it', and mentions a proposed newspaper article and lecture on the subject.
Murray's letter is clear evidence of the feeling within the polar community at the news of the Scott disaster, somewhat at odds with the public mood of deep mourning for heroic failure. The bitterness of his criticism presages the combative disagreements between 'Scott' and 'Shackleton' camps over the following decade, which led for example to Scott's surgeon Atkinson even ten years later publicly denying the presence of scurvy in the Southern Party, whilst privately admitting the possibility. Murray was the biologist with the Nimrod, and was provisionally placed in charge of the whole expedition in the event of Shackleton and Lt Jameson Boyd Adams both failing to return from their southern journeys. He died on an expedition with the Canadian explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson in the Beaufort Sea in 1914.
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