Frank Wild - Later Years and Honours

Later Years and Honours

On 24 October 1922 Frank Wild married Vera Altman, the widow of a tea planter of Borneo, at Reading Registry Office. They had first met in 1918 when Wild was serving in Russia, and he had assisted her to obtain a passage home to England. After the Shackleton–Rowett Expedition Wild returned to South Africa with Vera where he continued to farm. He bought some land in the Mkuzi valley in Zululand where he tried to grow cotton. The enterprise was a financial disaster and after five years of drought followed by flood, Wild gave up. Next he was involved in railway construction and for a time had some success with a contract to extend the South African railway to the border with Swaziland. However, the contract ended and he was forced to seek employment elsewhere.

Wild's marriage to Vera was in difficulty shortly after arriving in Zululand and she asked for a divorce, which became absolute on 27 December 1928. Next, Wild took a temporary job as a hotel barman at Gollel in Swaziland which was owned by a friend of his. Caught in the 1930 Depression, he was forced to move from job to job including battery manager at a diamond mine which went bankrupt, prospecting in Rhodesia, managing a quarry. He subsidised his meagre income by giving the occasional lecture on the Endurance expedition.

He married for the second time on 18 March 1931. His new wife, Beatrice (Trixie) Lydia Rhys Rowbotham, was 47 years old and ten years his junior. They settled in Germiston where in 1932 he worked supervising a stone-crushing machine at a Witwatersrand Gold Mine. Very happily married, the following four years saw relative peace and calm and Wild earned enough money not only to buy a car (Wolseley) but to take two well needed holidays in the hinterland and coast of South Africa. Due to ill health he was forced to leave the mining job and he was given a job by his brother in law Pat O'Brien Frost to oversee the building of Frost's house in Haenertsburg in the Eastern Transvaal. However, he had little respect for Frost, and this, coupled with the demands of building the house in an extremely remote part of the country, caused him to return to Johannesburg. By now he was in poor health but retained his characteristic kind, calm countenance. With the offer of a job as a store keeper on the Babrosco Mine near Klerksdorp from his friend Jack Scott, the mining magnate, he and Trixie finally found the peace they were seeking. He had also been awarded the Civil List Pension from Downing Street.

Frank Wild died of pneumonia and diabetes in Klerksdorp, South Africa, on 19 August 1939. He was cremated on 23 August 1939 at the Braamfontein Cemetery in Johannesburg.

Wild was awarded the CBE in the New Year Honours List of 1920. He was the recipient of a number of awards for his contributions to exploration and advancing Geography. He was awarded the Patron’s Medal of the Royal Geographical Society. In May 1923 he was made a Freeman of the City of London. Cape Wild on Elephant Island is named after him, as is Mount Wild and Point Wild in other parts of the Antarctic. His CBE and four-bar Polar Medal sold for £132,000 in September 2009, more than double the estimate.

On 27 November 2011 the ashes of Frank Wild, Shackleton's 'right-hand man', were interred on the right-hand side of Shackleton's grave site in Grytviken, South Georgia; the ashes had previously been found in the vault of Braamfontein Cemetery, Johannesburg, by journalist and author Angie Butler while researching a book. The inscription on the rough-hewn granite block set to mark the spot reads "Frank Wild 1873–1939, Shackleton's right-hand man." Wild's relatives and Shackleton's granddaughter, the Hon Alexandra Shackleton, attended a service conducted by the Rev Dr Richard Hines, rector of the Falkland Islands. Butler said, "His ashes will now be where they were always supposed to be. It just took them a long time getting there." The journey to South Georgia, the service and the interment were the subject of a BBC Radio 4 programme in the "Crossing Continents" series. On 25 November 2011 the Government of South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands issued a set of commemorative postage stamps honouring Frank Wild along with other Antarctic pioneers. The set comprises eight stamps in four setenant pairs with denominations of 60, 70 and 90 pence, and £1.15. They are available from the Falklands Islands Philatelic Bureau.

In April 2012 BBC2 broadcast "Frank Wild: Antarctica's Forgotten Hero", presented by Paul Rose, which placed Wild's achievements alongside those of Shackleton and the other explorers of the Heroic Age. The documentary film also featured commentary from polar historian Dr Huw Lewis-Jones, author Francis Spufford and explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes. Of Wild, Paul Rose has said: ""He was a true great. He stood shoulder to shoulder with Shackleton. They made the perfect team. With Shackleton’s great leadership skills, and Frank’s cool head and experience, they were able to handle almost anything that the Antarctic could throw at them."