A Brass Plaque Stamped 'RAYMOND/BRITISH ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION 1907'

The nameplate of the portable boat Shackleton intended to take on the Nimrod expedition: 'For Shackleton was proposing not only to reach the South Pole, but to cross the Antarctic Continent as well. He had acutally ordered a light portable boat - named Raymond, after the son he had left behind - which he intended dragging 2,000 miles to the other side. There, he would cross the Weddell Sea to a rendezvous with Nimrod. That in between lay uncharted waters and the unknown centre of a continent were unconsidered trifles. The Pole had dissolved into a milestone along the way. At the misty centre of Shackleton's dream lay an epic voyage in an open boat..."We cannot cross the sea on the other side", Shackleton was writing to Emily on the first day of 1908, "as the boat Raymond never was sent out through some rotten mistake": 'Still darling you can be relieved on that point for it was a very uncertain proposition at the best...' (R. Huntford, Shackleton, 1985, pp.186-7).