Voyage of The James Caird - Aftermath

Aftermath

The James Caird was returned to England in 1919. Two years later Shackleton went back to Antarctica, leading the Shackleton-Rowett Expedition. On 5 January 1922 he died suddenly of a heart attack, while the expedition’s ship Quest was moored in South Georgia.

Later that year James Quiller Rowett, who had financed this last expedition and was a former schoolfriend of Shackleton’s from Dulwich College, South London, decided to present the James Caird to the college. It remained there until 1967, although its display building was severely damaged by bombs in 1944. In 1967, the boat was given to the care of the National Maritime Museum, and underwent restoration. It was then displayed by the museum until 1985, when it was returned to Dulwich College and placed in a new location in the North Cloister, on a bed of stones gathered from South Georgia and Aberystwyth. This site has become the James Caird's permanent home, although it is sometimes lent to major exhibitions and has been seen in the London Boat Show (1994 & 2009), Greenwich, Portsmouth, Falmouth (2006), Washington DC, New York, Wellington (2004), and Bonn, Germany (1998).

The James Caird Society was established in 1994, to "preserve the memory, honour the remarkable feats of discovery in the Antarctic, and commend the outstanding qualities of leadership associated with the name of Sir Ernest Shackleton".