Tom Crean: an Appreciation

Extract

With the passing of Tom Crean, who died in August 1938, there goes another of a fast dwindling band of stalwarts, the naval Petty Officers of the Scott expeditions to the Antarctic.

When Captain Scott was selected to take command of the Discovery on the National Antarctic Expedition of 1901–4, he followed the example of the 1875 expedition under Nares and took with him an almost entirely naval personnel. Amongst these was a tall Irish A.B., Thomas Crean, who even then was celebrated amongst his fellows for a merry tongue and a facility for getting into tight places. He accompanied Lieut. Barne on his journey over the Barrier and fell into more crevasses than any other member of the party. He also went through some rotten ice just before the relief of the Discovery, and would certainly have been drowned had he not kept his head and stayed calmly in the mess of brash-ice until help and a rope were brought.