Miscellaneous 765


Arctic Medal 1818-55, unnamed, suspension rather crudely re-fixed, light contact marks, otherwise very fine £800-£1,000 766


Shirley, being unable to walk, was placed in his sleeping bag, rolled up in the tent robes, and tied securely on one of the sledges.


The Great Frozen Sea, Captain A. H. Markham


The Arctic 1875-76 medal awarded to Stoker John Shirley, H.M.S. Alert, a member of Markham’s Northern Sledge Party who suffered badly from cold and scurvy on their epic ‘Farthest North’ journey of 72 days and 600 miles


Arctic Medal 1875-76 (J. Shirley. Stoker. H.M.S. Alert.) fitted with a silver Hunt & Roskell ribbon buckle, very fine £5,000-£6,000


A total of 155 Arctic 1875-76 medals were awarded including 62 to the Alert, whose teams penetrated furthest north during the expedition.


John Shirley was born at Maidstone, Kent, on 20 February 1843, and joined the Royal Navy aboard H.M.S. Waterloo as a Boy 2nd Class on 28 October 1857, signing on for Continuous Service from age 18, which he duly did on 20 February 1861, and for a further 10 years on 20 February 1871. A boiler maker by trade he served as a Stoker throughout his naval career. He served in Alert as a Stoker from 17 April 1875 to 5 December 1876, and was rated Leading Stoker on the same day. During this period he was a member of Commander A. H. Markham’s seven-man team on the sledge Marco Polo for the Northern Depot Laying Party in the Autumn of 1875 (25 September to 15 October), during which one man suffered amputation and two others were disabled by frost-bite; Lieutenant May and another man on the sledge Hercules also suffered amputation.


Shirley was also a member of Markham’s eight-man team on the same sledge for the epic Northern Division Sledging Party in the Spring of 1876. This expedition left Alert on 3 April 1876, and comprised H.M. Sledges Support, Marco Polo (with a boat) and Victoria (with another boat), the object of the journey being to attain the highest northern latitude possible, and to determine the possibility of a more fully equipped party reaching the North Pole.


The three sledges Marco Polo, Victoria and Support weighed a total of 6,079 lbs. - 15 men dragging a staggering 405 lbs. per man - which offers some appreciation of the effort it took to get through the snow and over hummocks of ice as high as 20-30 feet. No surprises then that Markham observed, ‘The men appear a good deal done up.’


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