William Bakewell joined the Endurance at Buenos
Aires. He was
the only American aboard ship, though he posed as a Canadian
thinking that the British ship would be more inclined to take on a
subject of the British Empire. He was taken on as an able seaman at
£8 per month.
The Endurance had become three crew members short
after they had been sacked due to misconduct on the passage from
England and in port, Bakewell was taken on for this reason. Unknown
to Shackleton at the time, Bakewell helped his friend Perce
Blackborow to also join the ship unofficially as a stowaway.
Bakewell along with Ernie How another able seaman were concerned
that the Endurance was undermanned which encouraged them to smuggle
Blackborow on board.
Bakewell was well liked and Shackleton regarded
him to be;
"... a cut above the rest of the seamen".
William Bakewell lived an adventurous and romantic
maverick lifestyle. His adventures started at the age of 11 when he
ran away from his home town of Joliet, Illinois heading down to Missouri, where he
found work as a farm hand near Sikeston. By the time he was 15, he
started to ride boxcars on the railways which took him as far as
Seney, Michigan when he was found and kicked off. Here he worked on
lumber camp jobs, moving up into Canada eventually heading West and
ending up as a ranch hand in Montana.
By 1914 he had reached San Francisco and joined a
British ship as an able seaman, this took him to Newport in South
Wales when he joined the "Golden Gate". This ship foundered off the
coast of Montevideo (Uruguay) and so Bakewell made his way a little
further South to the Argentinean port of Buenos Aires. Here he met
and befriended Perce Blackborow who was also stuck in that port
without a ship when the Endurance arrived.
After the expedition, Bakewell spent some time in
Argentina managing sheep ranches before joining the British Merchant
Navy in the First World War. He was twice on ships that were sunk by
enemy torpedoes, on one occasion floating on a raft for several days
before being rescued.
1921 found him back in his hometown of Joliet,
Illinois. Here he built a boat he named the "Shamrock" which he
sailed on the Des Plaines river and Illinois canal between Joliet to
Chicago. This didn't last long however and by the end of the year,
he had left again informing his family by letter that he intended to
join Shackleton again on the Quest expedition. On advice from his
family, he never joined this expedition, instead heading to the
southern states of the USA and the Caribbean working as a merchant
seaman.
A lack of a consistency of purpose seemed to have
become the only stable factor in Bakewell's life and sure enough by
1923, he was back in Joliet again, this time working for the E.J. & E. Railroad, eventually becoming a towerman for
the Rock Island Railroad. By 1925 he had married Merle, and
a daughter Elizabeth was born. In 1945, they bought a farm in
Michigan where William lived out the rest of his life. He died in
1969 at the age of 80 and is buried in the Lutheran Cemetery in Skandia, Michigan.
For many years after the expedition Bakewell could
not be traced and in 1918 when Polar Medals were awarded to the
expedition members, he did not collect his. Many years later,
someone realised this when contact had once more been made and a
special medal was cast just for him, he finally received it in 1964
shortly after he had attended the 50th reunion of the sailing of the
Endurance which was held in London with his daughter Elizabeth.
Bakewell became a member of the Antarctic Club of
British Expeditions and the Antarctican Society of the United
States. He kept in touch with the Blackborow family and Ernie How's
family.
Some of the crew of the Endurance
photographed in Buenos Aries 1917
picture courtesy
Robin Mackenzie -
Stornoway Historical Society
Landmarks named after William Bakewell
Feature Name:
Bakewell Island
Feature Type: island
Latitude: 7450S
Longitude: 01855W
Description: Small ice-covered island near Princess Martha
Coast and E of Lyddan Island in the S part of Riiser-Larsen Ice
Shelf. The island was discovered Nov. 5, 1967, in the course of a
USN Squadron VXE-6 flight over the coast in LC-130 aircraft, and was
plotted by USGS from air photos taken at that time.
