Worsley Journal Bought

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31016, 23 March 1966, Page 1

Worsley Journal Bought

(From Our Own Reporter)

WELLINGTON, March 22. A journal written by Commander F. A. Worsley, a member of two Antarctic expeditions who also jointly headed the British Arctic expedition to Franz Josef Land in 1925, has been bought by the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, for £l4O. Commander Worsley was "born in Akaroa. The purchase was made at a London auction of diaries, a sketch book, photographs, lantern slides and pieces of 35 millimetre film kept and taken by Commander Wors-

ley on Sir Ernest Shackleton’s expeditions to the Antarctic in 1914-17 and 1921-22, and journals and log-books kept by Commander Worsley when on the Franz Josef Land expedition. The collection was sent for sale at Sotheby’s by the trustees of the estate of Dr. J. W. S. Marr, who, when he was 18, was appointed assistant zoologist to the Shackle-ton-Rowett expedition, aboard the Quest, in 1921. Day-to-day Account The journal bought by the Turnbull Library gives a day-to-day account of the British expedition to Franz Josef Land from June to October, 1925. Included was a rough log-book and a draft of the history of the Franz Josef archipelago. A spokesman for the Turn-

bull Library said the library was very disappointed at not getting either of its main objectives at the sale—the journals of the Shackleton expeditions of 1914-16 or of the 1921 Quest expedition. The purchaser of most of the Antarctic records is so far undisclosed, but it is considered unlikely that it was the Scott Polar Research Institute or any similar body. American Collectors

Many of the items were bought by a well-known London agent on behalf of an undisclosed principal, whose identity is unlikely to be known soon. There is some fear of interest on the part of American collectors.

A journal by Worsley covering the voyage with Shackleton from Elephant Island to South Georgia in the 1914-17

expedition was sold for £l3OO. Shackleton described the journey as “one of supreme strife amid heaving waters.”

An account of the 1921-22 expedition aboard the Quest went for £420, and one of Worsley’s sketchbooks, with drawings of penguins, Husky dogs and polar scenes, fetched £6OO. Lantern slides and photographs of several Antarctic expeditions, starting in 1909, were sold for £7OO. A letter written by Shackleton to Mrs Marr concerning the services of J. W. S. Marr in the Quest was sold for £BO. Bidders for the collection included the Australian National Library and the Scott Polar Research Institute. Shackleton and Alexander Turnbull, who was born in Wellington, were both educated at Dulwich College.