#clissold

Like others I'd been a little bemused that a cook should be placed so prominently with the motor party, even if he had invented a clever device for breadmaking, but learning that he was first and foremost an artificer and only secondarily a cook, both the device and the position made much more sense.  It also gives a little context to Atch's comment, in his unpublished expedition narrative, that Archer's cooking the second winter was a marked improvement on Clissold's, as the latter had only picked it up recently.  Funny how things slot into place, the more you learn!

A slightly less well-known part in his story involves the dogs.  Meares had gone to great lengths to secure two teams of Siberian sled dogs for the expedition, but the expedition had also been gifted two Eskimo** dogs, purportedly descended from those used by the Americans to reach the North Pole, and therefore dubbed Cook and Peary.  Meares dismissed them as useless, but Clissold made them his little project, and trained them into working dogs that could pull small loads around Cape Evans.

After returning from Antarctica, Clissold fought in the First World War, then settled in New Zealand and got a job with the Transport Department, winding up as a vehicle inspector.  He died in 1963 at the age of 77.

I chose Clissold to work out next as soon as I heard the BBC were going to rerun The Secrets of Scott's Hut, as I remembered one of the conservators had a bit of a soft spot for him.  As you can see, there isn't much photo reference for him; what there is is mainly looking down, and you can never see his eyes, so there was quite a bit of extrapolation I needed to do to get a working design.  I had the documentary on while I was finishing the last page, and suddenly there was a photo of Clissold I'd never seen before!

This is screen-captured off the iPlayer because I cannot find any other version of it, not even on SPRI's online picture library, not even when I try finding it by the back door.  It was too late to use it for reference, but I was gratified to find that it tallied pretty well with what I'd deduced of his face from the other photos. 

*You can find a diagram of this device in Griff Taylor's With Scott: The Silver Lining, p. 216