Details
Apsley George Benet Cherry-Garrard (1886-1959)
A pair of lambskin inner mittens, with attached cotton drawstrings [circa 1910]. 26.5 x 14.5cm. approximately. (Small tear to right-hand glove, a few old transferred rust-marks to the left). Provenance: Apsley Cherry-Garrard (1886-1959); by descent.
The mittens would have been accompanied by at least one pair of outer mittens, the outer-most layer normally being of reindeer, dog or seal skin.
Cherry-Garrard was initially turned down by Scott, but when he asked that his 1000 subscription should stand Scott (influenced by Wilson) reconsidered and he was accepted as an 'assistant zoologist'. Cherry-Garrard was chosen by Wilson to accompany him on the Winter Journey (with Bowers) to the Emperor penguin rookery at Cape Crozier (June-August 1911). On the journey their clothes froze in temperatures as low as -77F and over one hundred degrees of frost. He later accompanied the Polar Party to the Upper Glacier Dept, reached on 21 December 1911, and was a member of Atkinson's search party which found the Polar Party in November 1912. His account of the expedition, The Worst Journey in the World, was published in 1922.
'Once outside, I raised my head to look round and found I could not move it back. My clothing had frozen hard as I stood--perhaps fifteen seconds. For four hours I had to pull with my head stuck up, and from that time we all took care to bend down into a pulling position before being frozen in.
By now we had realized that we must reverse the usual sledging routine and do everything slowly, wearing when possible the fur mitts which fitted over our woollen mitts, and always stopping whatever we were doing, directly we felt that any part of us was getting frozen, until the circulation was restored.' (A.G.B. Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World, [1994], p.244) (2)
A pair of lambskin inner mittens, with attached cotton drawstrings [circa 1910]. 26.5 x 14.5cm. approximately. (Small tear to right-hand glove, a few old transferred rust-marks to the left). Provenance: Apsley Cherry-Garrard (1886-1959); by descent.
The mittens would have been accompanied by at least one pair of outer mittens, the outer-most layer normally being of reindeer, dog or seal skin.
Cherry-Garrard was initially turned down by Scott, but when he asked that his 1000 subscription should stand Scott (influenced by Wilson) reconsidered and he was accepted as an 'assistant zoologist'. Cherry-Garrard was chosen by Wilson to accompany him on the Winter Journey (with Bowers) to the Emperor penguin rookery at Cape Crozier (June-August 1911). On the journey their clothes froze in temperatures as low as -77F and over one hundred degrees of frost. He later accompanied the Polar Party to the Upper Glacier Dept, reached on 21 December 1911, and was a member of Atkinson's search party which found the Polar Party in November 1912. His account of the expedition, The Worst Journey in the World, was published in 1922.
'Once outside, I raised my head to look round and found I could not move it back. My clothing had frozen hard as I stood--perhaps fifteen seconds. For four hours I had to pull with my head stuck up, and from that time we all took care to bend down into a pulling position before being frozen in.
By now we had realized that we must reverse the usual sledging routine and do everything slowly, wearing when possible the fur mitts which fitted over our woollen mitts, and always stopping whatever we were doing, directly we felt that any part of us was getting frozen, until the circulation was restored.' (A.G.B. Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World, [1994], p.244) (2)