The Antarctica 1901 Cape postcard from Ernest Shackleton to his then fiancée Emily Dorman. Estimated at £1,500 – 2,000, this item rocketed to seven times this, ultimately selling for £8,400 including fees.
This postcard of Capetown and Table Mountain was written and signed by Ernest Shackleton to his fiancée Emily Dorman in London. Sir Ernest Shackleton (1874 – 1922) was at the time third lieutenant on “Discovery,” responsible for holds, stores, provisions and deep-water analysis. Shackleton married his future Lady Shackleton on 9 April 1904, however it was said that her solicitor father did not approve of the match, and that Shackleton only signed up for the expedition to win his bride – he believed it was the only way he might impress her enough that she would marry him.
The Discovery Expedition of 1901–1904 was a landmark in British Antarctic exploration history and is now considered as a legendary trailbreaker for later ventures. Known officially as the British National Antarctic Expedition, it was the first official British exploration of the Antarctic regions since the voyage of James Clark Ross sixty years earlier and was organised on a large scale under a joint committee of the Royal Society and the Royal Geographical Society. The new expedition carried out scientific research and geographical exploration in what was then largely an untouched continent, covered extensive ground in biology, zoology, geology, meteorology and magnetism – and it launched the Antarctic careers of many who would become leading figures in the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, including Shackleton.
This is an extraordinary piece of philatelic history, written and sent while the ‘Discovery’ was enroute to Antarctica, franked by Cape of Good Hope 1893-1902 1d ‘Hope’, tied by Simonstown hooded cds. It is a fine item, well written-up on album page.
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