During Winter 1902, members of the Swedish Expedition to the Antarctic Peninsula visited Cumberland Bay East, mapping the area and performing a geological survey. In command of their ship was the Norwegian, Carl Anton Larsen, who saw the potential of the island as a base for whaling in the Antarctic.
Shackleton's Visits, 1914-1916
Sir Ernest Shackleton and his British Trans-Antarctic Expedition sailed from London on the Endurance for the Antarctic, staying at Grytviken for a month before making her fateful journey to the Weddell Sea on December 5th, 1914. The Endurance became trapped and was eventually destroyed, forcing Shackleton and his crew to sail the whaleboat James Caird 1,300 Km across the Southern Ocean via Elephant Island in terrible conditions. Reaching King Haakon Bay on the south coast of South Georgia, Shackleton, Crean and Worsley traversed the unmapped glaciers and mountains of the island to reach Stromness - the first ever crossing of South Georgia.
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| Sir Ernest Shackleton |
Their first contact with the outside world for 17 months was when he heard the steam whistle of the whaling factory at Stromness at 06:30 on May 20th, 1916. He later went on to rescue all the men who had been left at King Haakon Bay and Elephant Island, and it is a credit to Shackleton's leadership that not a single man was lost on the expedition.
You can find a fuller account of the expedition, together with some of Frank Hurley's orginal photographs of the Endurance and Shackleton's expedition here.
Shackleton died aboard the Quest of a coronary thrombosis at Montevideo some 6 years later and was buried at Grytviken at his widow's request, in the company of whalers and with the spectacular backdrop of the Allardyce Range.
The scale of Shackleton's achievement was recognised in 1964 when the well-equipped Combined Services Expedition experienced great difficulties and almost lost 3 men in an avalanche, despite starting fresh and having plenty of food and modern equipment.
The Royal Navy were to lose two Wessex helicopters during a whiteout in military operations to retake South Georgia in 1982, and the normally indestructible SAS troopers landed on the Fortuna Glacier were forced to request evacuation.
Discovery Committee Investigations, 1920
In 1920, the British Colonial Office, aware that measures needed to be taken to conserve whale stocks: it imposed a tax on whale oil and recommended that fisheries around the Falkland Islands be developed: this was not done until the 1980's!
Scott's Discovery was fitted out and sent south from Canada (where she had been doing duty as a store ship for the Hudson's Bay Company). She was joined by the William Scoresby, and during an epic 5 and a half day cruise in bad weather around South Georgia took 370 water samples and 307 plankton net hauls. Scientists worked non-stop on studies of the krill and whale populations, and accurate charts were subsequently made of South Georgia, the South Orkney and South Shetland Islands.
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| Leith Harbour, showing abandoned whaling equipment |
Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS)
In 1949-50, the Falkland Islands Dependency Survey established a new base at King Edward Point on South Georgia's north eastern coast. This station assumed responsibility for meteorological observations, which had been made since 1905 and continued throughout the whaling era. In the 1962-63 season, a large hospital and residential building, Shackleton House, was built at King Edward Point, but today there are no scientists working at the station: all are located in field camps or at Bird Island, to the extreme north.
FIDS has now been renamed British Antarctic Survey (BAS), but continues to maintain a presence on South Georgia, providing a Magistrate who administers the island on behalf of the British Government.
The Falklands War, 1982
The Falkland Islands, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands have long been claimed by Argentina.
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| King Edward Point after the conflict |
With the abandonment of all South Georgia's whaling stations after 1967, a considerable amount of valuable scrap metal lies decaying at several locations. An Argentine scrap metal merchant Davidoff sought permission to salvage this metal, but landed without the Magistrate's permission and then proceeded to raise the Argentine flag over the island on April 3rd, 1982.
A small party of British Marines, previously landed from HMS Endurance, were stationed at King Edward Point and were attacked by vastly superior Argentine Forces, including two warships and helicopters. After putting up stiff resistance, shooting down a helicopter and severely damaging an Argentine warship with an antitank missile, the Marines surrendered. For the first time in over two hundred years, the British Flag no longer flew over South Georgia. The Marines and BAS personnel were captured and repatriated unharmed to the UK.
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| Argentine submarine "Santa Fe" sunk at Grytviken |
The Argentine occupation of the island was short-lived. HMS Endurance, HMS Antrim, HMS Brilliant and HMS Plymouth led an attack on the island on April 24th, 1982. This led to the destruction of the Argentine submarine Santa Fe and surrender of all Argentine forces on the island.
The message:
Be pleased to inform Her Majesty that the White Ensign flies alongside the Union Flag at Grytviken, South Georgia. God save the Queen
was sent. Antrim, Brilliant and Plymouth later went on to assist in the recapture of the Falkland Islands.
Click here for a fuller account of the recapture of South Georgia.
