Ernest Shackleton Trivia
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59 free Ernest Shackleton trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Ernest Shackleton trivia quiz covers the Anglo-Irish explorer who never reached his goal and became the model of a leader anyway. The easy questions cover the basics: the continent he explored, the ship crushed in the ice, the island where he left 22 men, the island he sailed to for help and the man he is always compared with. From there it moves through his birth in County Kildare, the school he was bored at, the years before the mast, the sea-water analysis job on Scott's Discovery, the 82°17′S record, the illness that sent him home and the resentment that followed. The harder end covers the Nimrod expedition: the Bay of Whales, the promise to Scott he had to break, the biscuit he gave Frank Wild, the Beardmore Glacier and the 'live donkey' remark. Then the Endurance: 5,000 applicants, the stowaway, the cat, 'She's going down!', Patience Camp, 497 days without solid ground, the 720-mile boat journey, the screws in the boots for the mountain crossing, the Chilean tug that finished the rescue, and the drink his doctor told him to give up on the night he died. It ends with the biscuit that sold at Christie's and the wreck found in 2022. Every answer was checked against Shackleton's encyclopaedia entry before publishing and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our Antarctica and James Cook quizzes are natural companions.
30 of 59 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01A crater at the south pole of which world is named after Shackleton?
The Moon
The Moon. Shackleton crater sits almost exactly on the lunar south pole, and because its floor never sees the Sun, scientists have probed it for frozen water.
Q 02In which Irish county was Shackleton born in 1874?
Kildare
Kildare. Shackleton was born at Kilkea, near Athy, and although the family left Ireland for London when he was ten, he went on calling himself 'an Irishman' all his life.
Q 03Shackleton's brother Frank was a suspect, later exonerated, in which famous 1907 crime?
The theft of the Irish Crown Jewels
The theft of the Irish Crown Jewels. They vanished from a safe in Dublin Castle days before a royal visit; the inquiry cleared Frank, a herald there, and the jewels have never been recovered.
Q 04Which London school did Shackleton attend from the age of thirteen?
Dulwich College
Dulwich College. Shackleton was said to be 'bored' by his lessons and usually sat low in the class lists, yet in his final term he came fifth of thirty-one.
Q 05How did Shackleton get his place on Scott's Discovery expedition?
Through the son of its main financial backer
Through the son of its main financial backer. Shackleton befriended Cedric Longstaff on a troopship bound for South Africa, then used him to win an interview with his father, who pressed the organisers to take him.
Q 06Which shipboard magazine did Shackleton edit during the Discovery expedition's first Antarctic winter?
South Polar Times
South Polar Times. Shackleton typed each monthly issue himself while Edward Wilson painted its illustrations, and the magazine was revived for Scott's last expedition.
Q 07Which disease was blamed for Shackleton's collapse on the return from Scott's 1902 southern journey?
Scurvy
Scurvy. That was the diagnosis at the time, and Scott invalided him home; doctors rereading the records have since suspected a heart defect or a lack of vitamin B1 behind the breakdown.
Q 08On which relief ship did Scott send Shackleton home early from the Discovery expedition in 1903?
Morning
Morning. Scott wrote that it was 'a great blow to poor Shackleton', but ruled he 'ought not to risk further hardships'; he sailed home in March 1903 while Discovery stayed in the ice another year.
Q 09Which post did Shackleton take up in January 1904?
Secretary of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society
Secretary of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. Shackleton had tried magazine journalism in London and found it unsatisfying, so he moved to Edinburgh for the post and married Emily Dorman three months later.
Q 10For which constituency did Shackleton stand unsuccessfully as a Liberal Unionist in 1906?
Dundee
Dundee. Though born in Ireland himself, Shackleton stood on a platform opposing Irish Home Rule, and the voters placed him fourth of five candidates.
Q 11Which Clydeside industrialist backed the Nimrod expedition, and had a glacier named after him?
William Beardmore
William Beardmore. Shackleton was working for the Glasgow shipbuilder when he planned the expedition, and the glacier he named for his patron became the party's road up to the polar plateau.
Q 12Which promise to Scott did Shackleton break in 1908?
Not to base himself in McMurdo Sound
Not to base himself in McMurdo Sound. Scott claimed the area as his own field of work, but ice barred every other landing Shackleton tried, and with coal running low he turned for his rival's old ground.
Q 13Which Antarctic inlet, named by Shackleton in 1908, became the base of the first party to reach the South Pole?
Q 21What was the goal of Shackleton's 1914 expedition aboard Endurance?
To cross Antarctica via the Pole
To cross Antarctica via the Pole. With the Pole itself already won, Shackleton called the 1,800-mile crossing the 'one great main object of Antarctic journeyings' left, yet he never even landed.
Q 22What is odd about the 'Men wanted for hazardous journey' advert credited to Shackleton?
No original has been found
No original has been found. Researchers have combed London newspaper archives without success, and the famous wording first turns up in a book published in 1944, 22 years after his death.
Q 23What was the name of the second ship of the 1914 expedition, sent to lay depots from the Ross Sea side?
The Bay of Whales
The Bay of Whales. Shackleton named it for the whales spouting on every side, then judged the floating ice too risky to winter on; three years later his Norwegian rival took the gamble and won.
Q 14How close to the South Pole did Shackleton get before turning back in January 1909?
97 nautical miles
97 nautical miles. 'We have shot our bolt', he wrote: rations had been cut again and again, and going on meant starving on the way back, so the four planted the flag and turned for home.
Q 15Which ailing companion got Shackleton's one daily biscuit on the return from Farthest South?
Frank Wild
Frank Wild. Sick with dysentery and able to eat little but biscuit, he had Shackleton's own ration pressed on him, and wrote that no amount of money could have bought it.
Q 16Which Antarctic volcano did members of the Nimrod expedition make the first ascent of?
Mount Erebus
Mount Erebus. A party from the hut stood at the edge of its active crater on 10 March 1908, and their account of the climb opens the first book written and printed in Antarctica.
Q 17Having turned back short of the Pole, Shackleton told his wife that which live animal was better than a dead lion?
Donkey
Donkey. The Bible's proverb says a living dog is better than a dead lion; Shackleton cast himself as the donkey, and Emily replied, 'Yes darling, as far as I am concerned.'
Q 18What was dug out from under the Nimrod hut in 2010, a century after being left behind?
Cases of whisky and brandy
Cases of whisky and brandy. Conservators cut them out of the ice, three crates of Mackinlay's Scotch and two of brandy; the distiller analysed the whisky and sold a recreated blend, with a share going to the trust that recovered them.
Q 19Which piece of new technology did Shackleton take to Antarctica on Nimrod in 1907?
A motor car
A motor car. The Arrol-Johnston hauled sledges well on smooth sea ice near the hut, but its wheels sank in soft snow, so it never went onto the Barrier.
Q 20Shackleton gave expert evidence to which official inquiry in 1912?
The Titanic inquiry
The Titanic inquiry. Asked as an ice expert what he would have done, Shackleton said he would slow down, and told the court: 'You have no right to go at that speed in an ice zone.'
Aurora
Aurora. A gale tore her from her moorings and she drifted in the ice for more than six months, leaving the shore party marooned without proper supplies; they laid every depot regardless.
Q 24What unusual question did Shackleton put to the physicist Reginald James at interview?
Whether he could sing
Whether he could sing. When James looked puzzled, Shackleton explained that he didn't mean 'any Caruso stuff', only whether he could 'shout a bit with the boys': he prized temperament as highly as skill.
Q 25When war broke out in 1914 Shackleton offered Endurance to the Navy; which politician wired that the expedition should go on?
Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill. As First Lord of the Admiralty he thanked Shackleton for putting ship and men at the country's disposal, then told him the authorities wanted the expedition to carry on south.
Q 26Who captained the Endurance and later navigated the James Caird to South Georgia?
Frank Worsley
Frank Worsley. The New Zealander managed only a few sextant sightings of the sun between storms, hugging the mast as the boat pitched, yet he brought the six-man boat to a speck of land across the Southern Ocean.
Q 27How did Perce Blackborow come to be aboard Endurance?
He stowed away after being refused a job
He stowed away after being refused a job. Friends in the crew hid him in a locker until the ship was well out to sea, and Shackleton, stuck with him, signed him on as steward.
Q 28What was the name of the cat aboard Shackleton's ship Endurance?
Mrs Chippy
Mrs Chippy. The tabby was in fact a tom, named for his owner, the carpenter Harry 'Chippy' McNish; once the ship was abandoned Shackleton had him shot, ruling that the party could not carry weaklings.
Q 29In which sea did the pack ice trap Endurance in January 1915?
Weddell Sea
Weddell Sea. The pack closed around Endurance short of her landing place and carried her helplessly north for ten months before the pressure finally crushed her.
Q 30Which instrument was the last thing saved from the sinking Endurance, kept by Shackleton as a 'mental tonic'?
A banjo
A banjo. Each man could keep only two pounds of personal gear, but Shackleton ordered the meteorologist's twelve-pound instrument brought along, and its concerts 'did much to keep the men cheerful'.