Tom Crean
Polar Explorer and Royal Navy Petty Officer · 1877–1938
Who is Tom Crean?
Tom Crean was an Irish-born Royal Navy petty officer and one of the most experienced polar explorers of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, taking part in three major expeditions. Born in Annascaul, County Kerry, he joined the Royal Navy as a teenager and volunteered for Scott's Discovery Expedition (1901-1904). He later served on Scott's fatal Terra Nova Expedition (1910-1913), where he made a solo trek of some 35 miles across the Ross Ice Shelf to save the life of Lieutenant Edward Evans, earning the Albert Medal for gallantry. Crean then joined Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-1917) aboard the Endurance. After the ship was crushed by pack ice, he was one of six men who sailed the lifeboat James Caird some 800 nautical miles to South Georgia, and one of three, alongside Shackleton and Frank Worsley, who made the first crossing of the island's uncharted mountains and glaciers to reach the whaling station at Stromness and organize rescue for the rest of the crew. Crean, a devout Catholic who wore a religious scapular throughout his ordeals, later retired to Annascaul, where he ran a pub named the South Pole Inn until his death in 1938.
Sources: Michael Smith, Tom Crean: An Unsung Hero (Headline, 2000) · Ernest Shackleton, South: The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition, 1914-1917 (1919), Chapter X · Frank Worsley, Shackleton's Boat Journey (1933)