On 9 January 1909, Eric Stewart Marshall joined Ernest Shackleton, Frank Wild and Jameson Adams in raising the Union Jack high on the desolate Antarctic Plateau, farther south than any men had reached before. A month and a half later, his individual heroics saved his three companions, who would otherwise have been doomed to icy graves.

 

Two years on, Marshall stood alone on a ridge deep in the interior of New Guinea, the first man from the Western world ever to see it. But Marshall received neither fame nor fortune from these great achievements, and the man described by fellow explorer Raymond Priestley as having ‘the build and arrogance of the class rugger forward’ became ever more embittered. As time passed, much of Marshall’s spleen was directed at Shackleton.

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The depth of Butler and Riffenburgh’s research is a feat of its own and  we are given a unique insight into an Edwardian whose recognition is long overdue.