page_title: Clements Markham
section_title: Shackleton and Scott
hierarchical_section_title: Clements Markham / Later life / Shackleton and Scott
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of Ernest Shackleton as a young man
context_page_description: Sir Clements Robert Markham KCB FRS was an English geographer, explorer, and writer. He was secretary of the Royal Geographical Society between 1863 and 1888, and later served as the Society's president for a further 12 years. In the latter capacity he was mainly responsible for organising the British National Antarctic Expedition of 1901–1904, and for launching the polar career of Robert Falcon Scott.
  Markham began his career as a Royal Navy cadet and midshipman, during which time he went to the Arctic with HMS Assistance in one of the many searches for Franklin's lost expedition. Later, Markham served as a geographer to the India Office, and was responsible for the collection of cinchona plants from their native Peruvian forests, and their transplantation in India. By this means the Indian government acquired a home source from which quinine could be extracted. Markham also served as geographer to Sir Robert Napier's Abyssinian expeditionary force, and was present in 1868, at the fall of Magdala.
  The main achievement of Markham's RGS presidency was the revival at the end of the 19th century of British interest in Antarctic exploration, after a 50-year interval.
context_section_description: A few months after the Discovery's return, Markham announced his retirement from the RGS presidency. He was 75 years old; according to his biographer he felt that his active geographical life was now over. His 12 years in the presidency was the longest period on record. He remained a member of the RGS Council, a vice-president, and he kept an active interest in Antarctic exploration, particularly in the two British expeditions which set out in the five years following his retirement. These were led respectively by Ernest Shackleton and Scott.
  Markham had agreed to Shackleton's appointment as third officer on the Discovery following a recommendation from the expedition's principal private donor. He had given sympathy and support after Shackleton's early return from the expedition on grounds of ill health, and had backed the latter's unsuccessful application for a Royal Navy commission. Later, after Shackleton had confided his intention to lead an expedition of his own, Markham supplied a generous testimonial, describing Shackleton as "well-fitted to have charge of men in an enterprise involving hardship and peril", and "admirably fitted for the leader[ship] of a Polar Expedition."
  He expressed strong support for Shackleton's 1907–1909 Nimrod expedition: "... not only my most cordial wishes for your success will accompany you, but also a well-founded hope." When news of the expedition's achievement of a new Farthest South latitude of 88°23' reached him, Markham publicly signified his intention to propose Shackleton for the RGS Patron's Medal.
  However, Markham had second thoughts, and was soon writing to the current RGS president, Leonard Darwin, to express disbelief about Shackleton's claimed latitudes, repeating these doubts to Scott. Historians have surmised that Scott was Markham's protégé, and that the old man resented polar glory going to someone else. Whatever his reason, Markham adopted a bitterness towards Shackleton which he retained for the rest of his life. He is said to have crossed out all favourable references to Shackleton in his own notes on the Discovery expedition, and to have virtually ignored Shackleton's achievements in a 1912 address to the British Association. He was equally dismissive in his history of Antarctic exploration, The Lands of Silence – published posthumously in 1921).
  By contrast, Markham remained on close personal terms with Scott and was godfather to the explorer's son, born 14 September 1909 and named Peter Scott in the old man's honour. In his tribute to Scott in the preface to Scott's Last Expedition (1913), Markham describes Scott as "among the most remarkable men of our time", and talks of the "beauty" of his character. As Scott lay dying "there was no thought for himself, only the earnest thought to give comfort and consolation to others." In one of the last letters written from his final camp, days from death, Scott wrote: "Tell Sir Clements I thought much of him, and never regretted his putting me in command of the 'Discovery'."
caption: Markham initially supported—but later turned against—Ernest Shackleton
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