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Weekly Feature - 9 November 2002
British immigrant made mark in Arctic world
In the dying years of the 19th century, Wairarapa
was home to a man who once stood closer to the North Pole than
anyone else before him, and whose name was stamped on the Arctic
map. Then, after six years of happy retirement in Carterton, he
left suddenly in mysterious circumstances. This story by Mike
Warman.
ADAM AYLES
THE name doesn’t leap from the pages
of Victorian history. Very few people have even heard of him.
Yet Chief Petty Officer Adam Ayles played an important part in
the Royal Navy’s last attempt to beat the world to the North
Pole.
Adam Ayles was born at Marnhull, Dorset, about
1850, the third child of unmarried Elizabeth Ayles. His mother
may have married later because, after leaving school at 12, Adam
is said to have worked on his “father’s” farm for
four years before running away to join the navy at Portsmouth.
He completed his basic training on the cadet ship HMS St Vincent
and the Abyssinian campaign of 1867 gave him his first taste of
action. In 1875 he volunteered, or was chosen, for service “in
the Polar Seas”.
The Nares Expedition
The British public, the navy and the Government lost their enthusiasm
for Arctic exploring after the disastrous Franklin expedition
of the 1840s, from which no one returned alive. But since 1865
two veterans of the search for survivors that came after that
tragedy had been trying to drum up support for another expedition.
The honorary secretary of the Royal Geographical Society, Clements
Markham, and rear admiral Sherard Osborn promoted their plan by
stressing its scientific benefits but, by the time public opinion
turned their way, the pole itself was the only benefit that mattered.
Risks were downplayed, rewards oversold, and nationalistic
fervour raised to fever pitch by the promoters and the press.
The president of the Royal Society caught the mood of the country
when he wrote: “To reach the pole is the greatest geographical
achievement which can be attempted, and I own I should grieve
if it should be first accomplished by any other than an Englishman.”
The expedition leader, Captain George Nares, was
a career officer aged 45. He took charge of the steam sloop Alert
– where Ayles was posted – while his second-in-command,
Captain Henry Stephenson, was given the converted steam whaler
Discovery.
George Nares, painted by Stephen Pearle in 1877.
Both men had fame thrust upon them and their faces,
along with those of their officers, were seen in the Graphic and
Illustrated London News. A polar bear logo was adopted for the
expedition - proving that image branding is nothing new - and
was printed everywhere, even on the ships’ dinner plates.
It might have been better, considering later events, if the organisers
had paid more attention to the food that would be served on the
plates.
British Arctic Expedition (1875-1876)
Departure
An estimated 200,000 people gathered at Portsmouth Harbour on
May 29, 1875 to cheer the expedition on its way. They were convinced
the union flag would soon fly at the North Pole, carried there
by sailors of the British Empire. As they watched the two ships
steer for the open sea, no one thought it mattered that –
with the exception of Nares – none of the officers on board
had even seen an iceberg. That was the least of their problems.
The Admiralty had ignored advice from people with more recent
experience of Arctic conditions. Consequently, the clothes issued
to the men were of the wrong design and materials, their sledges
were heavy and sank too far into the snow, and snowshoes were
dismissed as a joke. The list of mistakes is a long one, even
without the benefit of hindsight.
A hidden danger came with the rations. The salted
meat was in short supply for men who were expected to haul sledges
in atrocious conditions and, worst of all, their diet lacked vitamin
C. The minimum daily requirement to prevent the onset of scurvy
is 70 to 100 milligrams. Modern research shows that Nares’s
men got about 5 milligrams. The cause of scurvy wasn’t understood
at the time, but foods that prevented it – antiscorbutics
– had been recorded since the days of James Cook in the 18th
century.
Pierre Berton, in his book The Arctic Grail has
suggested “if the Nares expedition proved anything it proved
that the Royal Navy, after more than half a century of Arctic
exploration, had learned very little”.
Pack ice
Alert and Discovery sailed up the channel between Ellesmere Island
and Greenland in August 1875, after a stormy Atlantic crossing.
Captain Stephenson anchored the Discovery in Lady Franklin Bay,
to set up permanent winter quarters, while Nares took the Alert
up Robeson Channel towards Lincoln Bay, where the two islands
part company. No one had taken a ship that far north before. As
he rounded Cape Sheridan, at the northeastern tip of Ellesmere,
the view ahead filled him with “wonder and awe”. The
frozen polar sea had already begun its winter advance. Gigantic
blocks of ice, some 80 feet thick and weighing thousands of tons,
were fusing together into a solid wall that stretched as far as
the eye could see.
Searching for a safe harbour, Nares took the Alert
into a sheltered bay, then watched as the wall piled up behind
him. The ship wouldn’t be crushed in pack ice but it was
sealed in until spring. The attempt on the pole would begin then.
In the meantime, supply depots had to be laid out along the route.
Two teams set off in September, one under Lieutenant Albert Markham,
and another commanded by Lieutenant Pelham Aldrich whose sledge
captain was Adam Ayles. These novices met conditions they would
never have imagined in their worst nightmares. They manhandled
the sledges over ice hummocks and through soft snow. Without snowshoes,
they sank up to their knees in it. To add to their discomfort,
their tents and bedding became wet and frozen, adding to the weight
they had to pull.
THE Alert caught in the ice near Cape Beechy,
Robeson Channel.
The one notable reward for their suffering came
when Aldrich, Ayles and their team set a new mark for Farthest
North, breaking a record that had stood for 50 years. A third
of Markham’s men came back to the ship suffering from frostbite.
Three of them had fingers or toes amputated and their wounds took
months to heal during the dark Arctic winter.
In April – the spring of 1876 – these
teams set off again with two sledges each. And two boats. An American
explorer had theorised that a polar sea existed beyond the pack
ice. Although Nares didn’t believe it, he thought the boats
would be good insurance. The men would drag them forward for a
few hundred metres and then return for the sledges. This halved
the distance they could travel in a day and doubled their workload.
Nares had brought 55 sled dogs with him but they
were only used for short trips. The sledges, in best naval tradition,
were to be dragged north by sailors.
Scurvy
Markham had the honour of going for the pole, while Aldrich explored
the northern limits of Ellesmere Island. Within days of their
departure, the first signs of scurvy began to appear in both teams.
One or two men felt “seedy”. Their swollen, tender knees
and ankles were thought to be the result of overwork. Within a
fortnight, two of Markham’s men were so ill they had to ride
on the sledges. Aldrich, meanwhile, continued west, mapping the
unknown territory of Ellesmere Island while the disease claimed
more of his crew every day. Adam Ayles wasn’t affected by
it.
At some point on that frozen coast, which must
have been close to the place where they were forced to turn back,
Ayles built a very personal memorial. He “erected a cairn”
in which he “placed the Grand Lodge seal of the Good Templar
Order of England, and placed over it a flag bearing the emblems
of the Manchester Unity of Oddfellows.” Ayles was a member
of several benevolent societies and a strong supporter of the
Temperance movement. He didn’t give a position for his cairn
but it may have been at 82N 80W which is where we find Ayles Fiord,
leading into Ayles Bay, containing the Ayles Ice Shelf. There
is also a Mount Ayles on Ellesmere Island. That might be a renamed
Mount Juliet which Ayles said he climbed with Lieutenant Aldrich.
Failure
Markham abandoned his attempt on the North Pole in late May, 400
nautical miles short of his target. Bitterly disappointed, he
wasn’t consoled by the fact that he had taken his expedition
farther north than any other. The return journey would be a race
against time and scurvy. Five of his men couldn’t move and
five more could only stagger a few metres without rest. They reached
land again on June 5, but Markham knew they wouldn’t survive
the 40-mile journey back to their ship. Lieutenant Chase Parr
was the only man fit enough to go for help. The day after he left,
one of the team died from scurvy. When the rescue party reached
them, crawling through deep snow on their hands and knees, only
three of Markham’s 15 men were able to walk. Another search
team found Aldrich and all his men alive, but far from well. The
Lieutenant and his sledge captain, Adam Ayles, were the only two
fit enough to pull a sledge. Ayles maintained, for the rest of
his life, that this was due to the fact he and Aldrich never touched
“ardent spirits”. His entry in the Cyclopedia of New
Zealand (1897) noted “... the only total abstainers escaped
both scurvy and frostbites ... ... when all the rest, who used
intoxicants, were unable to walk.” Modern science tells us
he was right – alcohol restricts the body’s ability
to absorb Vitamin C – but he went against the wisdom of his
time, when sailors thought a tot of navy rum was a cure all and
“the best antidote to cold”. Ayles challenged them to
“plant their proof nearer the North Pole” than his Good
Templar medal.
Escape
Once back on board the Alert, rest, antiscorbutics and a slightly
better diet restricted the expedition’s death toll to four,
but Nares could see they would have to leave for England immediately
instead of staying for another year as planned. The Alert blasted
her way out of the bay, using torpedoes against the melting ice,
and joined the Discovery – where scurvy was rife as well
– for the journey home. Despite public disappointment at
their failure to reach the pole, receptions and banquets for the
expedition members went ahead.
A special Arctic medal was struck and awarded
to everyone involved. Adam Ayles received three Temperance medals
as well, including one from the National League. All the officers
were promoted – except for George Nares. Ayles stayed with
the navy until 1885 and took his discharge in Sydney. He lived
there for another seven years, except for a short visit to England,
and then moved to New Zealand. He settled in Carterton which,
in 1893, was a small township of just over a thousand people.
Retirement
Adam’s adventures in the Arctic were not fully appreciated
while he lived in Wairarapa. When he told his survival story to
a Masterton Temperance meeting, one reporter referred to him repeatedly
as Mr “Hales” and seemed to have a poor understanding
of the Nares expedition. Other references were equally vague and
his entry in the Cyclopedia of New Zealand is full of errors.
Their ignorance doesn’t appear to have offended
him. Ayles became an active and popular member of the community.
He was a vestryman at St Mark’s Church and joined benevolent
societies and sports clubs. In September 1896 he was chosen from
11 applicants for the job of Carterton librarian. He lived on
the premises in Holloway Street and was paid £30 a year.
The library committee went on record more than once to express
their satisfaction with his services, and their regret that, until
membership increased, they couldn’t afford to pay him more
than the “mere pittance” he received.
In the summer of 1898 he was made president of
the Carterton Rovers Football Club and became Worshipful Master
of his Masonic Lodge. After only five years in the district, Ayles
was a pillar of society. All this would change, suddenly and dramatically,
on Monday, March 27, 1899.
Mystery
Adam Ayles resigned as Carterton librarian that morning and left
town on the afternoon train. The library committee held an emergency
meeting to find a replacement but the minute book gives no reason
for his hasty departure. In fact there doesn’t seem to be
an official explanation anywhere.
Part of the answer is found in the diary of James
Cox, a man who knew and liked him. Cox was “both sorry and
astonished” to find that Ayles had been accused of committing
“a disgusting offence”. His accuser remains a mystery.
Two questions spring to mind. If he was innocent,
why did he leave? If he was guilty of a serious offence, why was
he allowed to leave? Perhaps Ayles’s offence was embarrassing
rather than criminal, if it happened at all. Cox’s diary
for April 16 says that his employer, agricultural contractor Arthur
Spooner, had “made enquiries about (the) Ayles affair”
and found no evidence against him.
Adam Ayles moved north to Auckland and supplemented
his naval pension with work as a groundsman at the Rocky Nook
Bowling Club in Mt. Albert. He was mowing the green there in early
April 1912 when he collapsed and died of a heart attack. Unknown
to the world at that time, another polar explorer – Robert
Falcon Scott – had died in the Antarctic just a few days
earlier.
l If anyone has more information about the circumstances
surrounding Mr Ayles’s mysterious departure, e-mail us at
chiefrep@age.co.nz
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