Exceptional Naval and Polar Awards from the Collection of RC Witte

‘You are always wanting me to give up things, so what is it I ought to give up?”

Shackleton to Macklin aboard the Quest, 5 January 1922: moments later, after Macklin had suggested alcohol, his leader collapsed with a fatal heart attack

‘There radiated from him something strong and powerful and purposeful so that even to meet him was an experience. It was something that I have never come across in anyone else. He valued loyalty above everything, no one ever questioned his authority.’

Macklin on Shackleton





The rare North Russia 1919 O.B.E., Great War M.C. group of five awarded to Lieutenant-Colonel A. H. Macklin, Royal Army Medical Corps, who had earlier distinguished himself as a Surgeon in the Endurance during Shackleton’s Trans-Antarctica Expedition 1914-16, not least while caring for the sick on Elephant Island - reunited with Shackleton in North Russia in 1919, he was enrolled on the strength of the Quest Expedition and, in January 1922, after witnessing “The Boss’s” demise, made the necessary preparations for his burial in South Georgia

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, O.B.E. (Military) Officer’s 1st type breast badge, silver-gilt and enamel, hallmarks for London 1919, in its Garrard & Co. case of issue; Military Cross, G.V.R., in its case of issue; Victory Medal 1914-19, M.I.D. oak leaf (Major A. H. Macklin); Polar Medal 1904, G.V.R., silver, 1 clasp, Antarctic 1914-16 (A. H. Macklin, Surgeon, “Endurance”); Efficiency Decoration, G.VI.R., Territorial, the reverse officially dated ‘1943’, in its Royal Mint case of issue, together with Italian Armata Altipiani Medal 1918 and a City of Trieste commemorative, a set of related dress miniature medals (6), including Russian Order of St. Stanislaus, and a U.S.A. silver Dollar of 1878, in brooch-mount with engraved initials ‘T. T. M. & J. H. B.’ and the date ‘March 1882’, generally extremely fine (14)
£18000-22000

This lot was sold as part of a special collection, Exceptional Naval and Polar Awards from the Collection of RC Witte.

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Collection

Ex-Christie’s, 25 September 2001, when sold by the recipient’s direct descendants.

O.B.E. London Gazette 3 February 1920:

‘In recognition of valuable services in connection with military operations in Murmansk, North Russia, to be dated 11 November 1919.’

M.C. London Gazette 1 January 1919:

‘For services rendered in connection with military operations in Italy.’

Alexander Hepburne Macklin, physician, polar explorer and soldier, was born in Melrose in 1889, the son of a doctor, but later moved south to the Scilly Isles, where he accompanied his father during his visits to patients around the islands in small boats. Hence an early affiliation with the sea, which he broadened by serving as a deck hand on a boat in the Mediterranean during his year out between leaving Plymouth College and going up to Manchester University to study medicine - as a student at the latter establishment, he discovered Nansen’s Furthest North, thereby igniting his interest in polar exploration.

Surgeon explorer - Shackleton’s ill-fated Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1914-16

Duly qualified, he was alerted to Shackleton’s call for volunteers for his Trans-Antarctic Expedition, and managed to gain an interview with the great man at his New Burlington Street office. Presenting himself early one morning to meet what he later described as a ‘living avalanche’ coming down the stairs, he was compelled to wait until the afternoon before the explorer returned. Macklin later wrote in his diary:

‘The interview was brief:

“Why do you want to go?”

“I don’t know, I just want to.”

“You look fit enough; are you perfectly healthy?”

“Perfectly fit.”

“What is wrong with your eyes?”

“Nothing” [Macklin was short-sighted]

At this I could have kicked myself for not removing my spectacles before going in to see him. I scarcely knew what to say, but replied almost without thinking.

“Many a wise face would look foolish without specs.”

At this he laughed, then seemed to be thinking of something else for he remained silent for several minutes.

“All right, I’ll take you,” he said, and with that pushed me out of his office.’

Of subsequent events in Antarctica, little requires elaboration here, the Endurance famously becoming trapped in pack ice in the Weddell Sea in January 1915, before Shackleton’s six-man trans-continental party could even reach it starting point, though it is worth noting for the record that he had already decided upon Macklin as one of those team members.

Indeed it is clear from his frequent mention of the young doctor in his account of the expedition that Shackleton held him in high esteem - whether for setting off on risky sledge trips to collect abandoned gear or taking on the role of ‘honorary vet’ for the care of the dog teams, one of which he led; so, too, for his successful forays with rifle and gun, from which he returned with valuable rations, including ‘a huge Weddell seal weighing about 800lbs and two emperor penguins’ (Shackleton refers).

Such activities aside, Macklin, and his medical colleague, McIlroy, were charged with the overall well-being of their colleagues, no mean feat given the momentous events that followed the eventual demise of the Endurance in November 1915. Left with three lifeboats and meagre rations, Shackleton and his men undertook a remarkable journey to ‘escape the ice’, camping out on floes that eventually took them 1600 miles north. Then, at last, in early April 1916, the ice began to break up, thereby allowing them to launch their lifeboats in a bid to reach Elephant Island, 60 miles distant. It was an epic open boat voyage that took six days, Macklin acting as a stroke-oar in the Dudley Docker under Frank Worsely and, by the time landfall was reached many of the men were suffering from frostbite and dehydration.

And it was on account of this state of affairs that Shackleton mounted what was to become one of the great open-boat voyages of all time, namely his remarkable journey in the James Caird to South Georgia, 800 miles distant, from whence a successful rescue mission was mounted to collect the 22 men who had been left on Elephant Island under Frank Wild. Both Macklin and McIlroy had volunteered to go in the James Caird, but as Shackleton later noted, they ‘realised that their duty lay on the island with the sick men’. And so it was, the two doctors having to attend to their starving and frostbitten team members for three months, before Shackleton returned, in certain cases having to undertake emergency operations. Shackleton, the master of understatement, takes up the story:

‘Once they settled in their hut, the health of the party was quite good. Of course, they were all a bit weak, some were light-headed, all were frostbitten, and others, later, had attacks of heart failure. Blackborrow, whose toes were so badly frostbitten in the boats, had to have all five amputated while on the island. With insufficient instruments and no proper means of sterilising them, the operation, carried out as it was in a dark, grimy hut, with only a blubber-stove to keep up the temperature and with the outside temperature well below freezing, speaks volumes for the skill and initiative of the surgeons [Macklin and McIlroy]. I am glad to be able to say that the operation was successful, and after a little treatment ashore, very kindly given by the Chilean doctors at Punta Arenas, he has now completely recovered and walks with only a slight limp.’

When, at length, Shackleton hove into view aboard his rescue ship on 30 August 1916, Frank Wild paced up Penguin Hill with a petrol can to ignite a pile of old clothes, while Macklin made a rush for the flagstaff which was placed on a prominent position on an ice-slope - the running gear and flag were frozen solid, so by way of compensation he tied his jersey to the top of the pole. And their combined efforts to signal “The Boss” - the whole supported by the men screaming themselves hoarse - were but a few of the memorable incidents that passed on what became known as the ‘day of wonders’.


Soldier surgeon - France, Italy and North Russia 1917-19

Commissioned in the Royal Army Medical Corps on his return from Antarctica, via South America, Macklin served on attachment to the Tank Corps in France, but it was for his subsequent deeds on attachment to the 11th Battalion, West Yorkshire Regiment, in Italy, in 1918, that he was awarded his M.C. for treating wounded under fire - the Battalion was heavily engaged in the fighting on Asiago Plateau, at Vittorio Veneto and at the passage of the Piave and the Monticano.

Macklin next volunteered for service in North Russia, where, among other events, he was re-united with Shackleton at Murmansk, the pair last having seen each other in Buenos Aires after the Endurance expedition. And he was able to impart some useful intelligence to his old chief, having overheard Major-General Maynard exclaim, “I’ve heard about this man Shackleton. He’s an impossible person. He likes to run everything in his own way ... I’m not going to have him.” As it transpired, “The Boss” dealt with Maynard admirably, so much so that his senior later described him as ‘a cheerful and amusing companion’, who did much to dispel moments of gloom and depression.

Politics aside, Macklin busied himself in the treatment of extensive outbreaks of scurvy, in addition to smallpox, typhus and typhoid, and was instrumental in establishing new methods of transport for the evacuation of the wounded from the front - valuable work that formed the basis for his M.D. thesis on his return.

He was awarded the O.B.E. and the Russian Order of St. Stanislaus, 2nd Class, with swords, in addition to being mentioned in despatches.

The “Quest” Expedition 1921-22

In 1921, Macklin was recruited by “The Boss” to join his Shackleton-Rowett expedition but, before the project begun, he died of a heart attack on the Quest at South Georgia on 5 January 1922. He had asked for Macklin in the early morning hours, suffering from back pains and other discomfort and, according to Macklin’s own account, he told “The Boss” he had been overdoing things and should ‘try to lead a more regular life’, to which Shackleton replied, “You are always wanting me to give up things, so what is it I ought to give up?”. Macklin having responded, “Chiefly alcohol, Boss,” a few moments later, at 2.50 a.m., the great explorer suffered a fatal heart attack.

Macklin’s subsequent post-mortem attributed Shackleton’s death to atheroma of the coronary arteries hastened by ‘overstrain during a period of debility’. At his widow’s request, he was buried in the cemetery at Grytviken, where his faithful physician noted in his diary:

‘I think this is as “The Boss” would have had it himself, standing lonely in a island far from civilisation, surrounded by stormy tempestuous seas and in the vicinity of one of his greatest exploits.’

And he subsequently wrote the appendix on the medical work of the Quest expedition in Frank Wild’s Shackleton’s Last Voyage (London, 1923), a practical guide to the recognition, prevention and cure of ailments likely to be met in the Polar regions, together with a section on the care of dogs.
Physician and Territorial

On returning home, Macklin settled in general practice in Dundee, where he joined the staff of the Royal Infirmary as a chloroformist, and later became Head of the Electrocardiogram Department.

But he also retained his links with the military by way of retaining his commission in the Territorial Army and, on the renewal of hostilities in September 1939, was called-up as a Lieutenant Colonel, initially with an appointment as C.O. of a Field Ambulance in the 51st Highland Division, but latterly he served as a Medical Officer in East Africa.

Finding his previous records and research at the Royal Infirmary in Dundee in disarray on his return at the end of hostilities, Macklin took up an appointment as Physician in Charge of the Student Health Service at Aberdeen University in 1947, which post also included an honorary appointment as a physician on the staff of Aberdeen Royal Infirmary. And over the coming years he contributed much valuable work towards the development of student health services throughout the U.K. Retiring from his university practice in 1960, aged 70 years, he nonetheless remained employed full-time as an orthopaedic house officer in a busy ward at the Royal Infirmary, and he was still working in that capacity at the time of his death in March 1967.

Macklin, whose favourite maxim was ‘always accept a chance or a challenge’, was a modest man, refusing to speak about his assorted honours and distinctions with his wife, a nursing sister, following their marriage at the end of the 1939-45 War - which probably accounts for the fact that his O.B.E., M.C. and T.D. remained firmly in their respective cases of issue and, indeed, for the absence of his British War Medal.

Be that as it may, he couldn’t avoid a permanent memorial in the form of the twin-peaked Mount Macklin in the Salvesen Range on South Georgia.