FOREWORD

Written by Julian Evans Grandson of Admiral Edward Ratcliffe Garth Russell Evans, 1st Baron Mountevans

Our lives hang by a thread. For me, that thread could not have been thinner, nor more poignantly exemplified than by the heroism of just one man. In rescuing my grandfather from certain death, Tom Crean assured my very existence. So I never tire of reading the accounts of the ‘Heroic Age of Exploration’ and I am always profoundly moved. I am far from alone in this respect because, as Tim Foley explains in this excellent account of one man’s extraordinary endeavours, Tom Crean’s legacy is a testament to the human spirit.

My father was introduced to Tom Crean as a babe in arms, carried to him by my, no doubt, grateful grandfather, a man whose life was not without its own stories of extraordinary courage which my family proudly celebrates. Not to say that any of us have ever been involved in similar adventures. As my late father once said, ‘I haven’t done anything heroic in my entire life that I’m aware of.’

But that’s not the point. The point is, we need these stories.

We need to hear them again and again because they give us reasons to strive, to endure hardships, to remember that we are fortunate to be alive.

Tom Crean is one of those human beings whose life and deeds make him an icon and an inspiration, not just to the individual, not just to Ireland, but to the world. Tim Foley was right to strive to achieve national recognition for him. This account is a reminder to those of us who know and a succinct introduction to those of us who don’t.

Weall have our heroes, and the basis on which they were given that status stems from a variety of different reasons.

The subject of this book became my hero because the stories I’d heard and read about him were so incredible that I doubted such a man could ever have existed. Interestingly, the river beside which he grew up, the Owenascaul, translates in English to ‘the hero’s river’, and the nearby lake, Loughanscaul, similarly translates to ‘the lake of the hero’.1 Some may see this as prophetic.

After many years of research, I learned that the stories about this man were not myths – they were witnessed and documented by his colleagues and by those who benefitted from his actions.

Although his birth was registered on 25 February 1877 in Dingle, County Kerry, church records confirm that Tom Crean was actually born on or shortly before 16 February, close to the small village of Annascaul on the Dingle peninsula in Ireland. He was born at a time when the British Empire governed Ireland and many young men, seeking a way out of poverty, joined the British Royal Navy. Among their number was Tom Crean and therein, perhaps, lay the reason his heroism was not ‘officially’ acknowledged by his own country until eighty-three years after his passing.

To offer a better sense of the era, in the year that sixteen-year-old Tom Crean joined the Royal Navy, 1893, the Second Home

Tom Crean in an image featured in the Irish Independent in 1912 entitled: ‘The Kerryman with Scott’.

Rule Bill was introduced to the British parliament. For a while, things looked promising for Irish nationalists, as the Bill would have given Ireland autonomy over aspects of Irish governance, although Ireland would have remained under British rule. This was an era when a growing number of Irish men and women believed they should assert their independence from Britain, and Home Rule was seen as a step in that direction. However, the Bill went the way of its earlier iteration and was defeated in the House of Lords.

With the advent of the twentieth century, Irish nationalism gained increasing support, leading to a strong reaction against those seen to have supported the British Empire. Tom Crean has often been tarred with this brush, and there has since existed a belief that the impoverished, poorly educated teenager, who sought a means of escape from a life of deprivation, may have joined the Royal Navy out of some sense of allegiance to the British Empire. For more than a century, this belief was, I believe unjustly, a factor in how little recognition this remarkable man’s deeds received in his homeland.

The truth is actually very different. Crean was a dyed-in-the-wool Irishman brought up in an area in County Kerry where Irish was still the first language. A native Irish speaker, he had a fierce love for his country. He entered paid service with the Royal Navy for economic reasons, undertaking training on depot ships, on shore establishments and out at sea. He displayed his patriotism proudly over the course of a twenty-seven-year career, which ended with his retirement in 1920. For nine years of his naval service, he was seconded by the navy to three expeditions that took him to the most inhospitable location on the planet: Antarctica.

Many major historical events occurred as his career and life progressed. Most notable among them were the First World War in 1914–18; the Easter Rising of 1916; the Irish War of Independence of 1919–21; and the Irish Civil War in 1922–23. In this era of conflicts at home and abroad, Crean’s heroism, understandably, went unheralded. His incredible story transcends any attempts to politicise it and should be celebrated for the astonishing outcomes that allowed the very existence of the descendants of the men he saved. In 2021, with a greater insight into and understanding of Tom Crean’s story, the case for official recognition from the country of his birth finally brought about the honour he richly deserves. It came in the shape of a government-funded scientific vessel being named RV Tom Crean, the result of an eleven-year campaign which generated huge support from across the world.

As much as I fought for Tom Crean’s official recognition over the years, researching his life for this biography triggered a new drive in me. Discovering the number of falsehoods that have populated previous accounts of Tom Crean’s story was entirely unexpected. Finding also, that a host of missing information had never before been made available to readers, I found myself with a new mission – to correct the errors and to fill in the blanks in his life and career. The inaccuracies included his birthdate, the gender make-up and number of his siblings, and other significant blunders that have, for many years, been digested by readers who were eager learn more about his fascinating life.

Other errors include it being documented that Crean’s mother died twenty years before she actually did and that, after his retirement, Crean would often visit his two brothers, Hugh and Daniel, at the family farm at Gortacurraun, despite the fact that Hugh passed away in 1908, twelve years before Tom retired. Relatively minor errors include the misnaming of the ship that brought Tom and his Endurance colleagues back to England in November 1916. Highland Lassie, a ship that disappeared at sea on a voyage from Swansea to River Plate in 1904 with a loss of thirty-six lives, is separated by two letters that would have correctly logged the vessel under her true title, Highland Laddie. There are several more examples, but I’ll refrain from listing them all.

In addition to the errors that have populated Tom Crean’s timeline, missing also from previous accounts of his life are a number of notable assignments, events and people that played a part in his story. Among these were an eventful seven-year period of naval service in the Americas and Oceania before his maiden voyage to Antarctica aboard Discovery. Shortly before the First World War broke out, Crean’s service on on the Admiralty yacht HMS Enchantress, in 1914, at a time when Winston Churchill was aboard was, to my mind, a noteworthy assignment. It was also just a matter of months before Crean would embark on his final expedition to Antarctica, yet Enchantress, and Crean’s presence on board, is an event that has never been referenced in other accounts of his life. Absent too, is any mention of the overtures expedition leader Joseph Foster Stackhouse made to Crean for the proposed British Antarctic Expedition in 1914. Crean’s activities in 1919, in the Arctic Circle with the Northern Russia Expedition are never documented other than to suggest his career effectively ended before HMS Fox set sail from England to Murmansk, something which I have sought to remedy here.

Very little has also been written about Crean’s time after leaving the navy and the stories incorporated within this account of his life offer a clearer picture of his time in retirement. They make for tales of sadness as well as humour, and they allow us a greater insight into Tom Crean’s character and his mindset.

It will take time to replace the misinformation that still does the rounds in articles, lectures and in books written for all ages, but it’s a challenge I’ve attempted to rectify in writing up this volume of his life. It truly was an extraordinary life and for those who may never have heard of Tom Crean, I believe you will never forget his name after discovering his incredible story.

Possibly the first ever newspaper reference to Tom Crean, as he took to the Gaelic football field to play for his hometown team, the Liberators (Annascaul), against the Shamrocks (Dingle). Kerry Sentinel, 3 May 1892.

Hardships