Mackintosh, Aeneas
People > Mackintosh, Aeneas
Annie Mackintosh and her six children Aeneas, Isobel, George, Alexander, Berkeley and Eric arrived in Bedford from India in 1891. Bedford was almost certainly chosen because of the outstanding reputation of the two boys schools. Aeneas and his brothers all attended Bedford Modern School and Aeneas was there from January 1891 to 1894, when he left to join the Merchant Navy, (P and O Line).
The family lived first at St Leonards Avenue but by 1894 they had moved to 29, Clarendon Street.
While with P.O., Aeneas was given permission to become Second Officer on Ernest Shackleton's 1907 Nimrod Expedition to the South Pole, and it was in the Antarctic that in January 1908 he had an accident while loading the ship. A loading hook swung into his face and ripped out his right eye. He was sent back to New Zealand to recuperate and only rejoined the expedition in 1909 just before it ended. On his return, however, he had a further brush with fate, for when the Nimrod got stranded in the ice 25 miles from base, Mackintosh decided that he would walk across the ice with three sailors, to reach the huts. With the poor weather conditions, the sea ice melting around them and snow blindness, it was acknowledged by the leaders of the expedition that the group were fortunate to survive.
Arriving back in England in June 1909 he was discharged from the Merchant Navy due to his sight problems. He was offered a position on an expedition to be led by Douglas Mawson but this never materialized and subsequently Aeneas took himself to the Cocos Islands on a gold prospecting trip, returning empty handed. He then became Assistant Secretary of the Merchant Navy Guild in Liverpool.
Mackintosh came back to Bedford in February 1912 when at Trinity Church in Bromham Road, he married Gladys Campbell the daughter of a retired Army Colonel, who lived at Linden House, 65, Bromham Road. The couple settled in Liverpool, where their first daughter Pamela Aileen was born on 25th October 1912. Aeneas could not however adjust to the mundane life of office based work and hankered to go exploring again.
Early in 1914, having been invited by Shackleton to join his proposed Trans Antarctic Expedition and become leader of the Ross Sea Advance Party, Aeneas rented a new house in Beverley Crescent for him and his wife so that she could be close to her relatives while he was away. He sailed from London in August 1914 just four months before his second daughter Gladys Elisabeth was born in Bedford.
Having reached the Antarctic, Mackintosh took control of what was an essential part of the expedition, its job was to lay supply depots along the expedition route. He was immediately faced with enormous difficulties and confused and vague instructions left him uncertain as to the timing and even the route of Shackleton's intended march. These problems were compounded when their ship the Aurora was swept from its winter moorings during a gale and was unable to return leaving ten men stranded on the ice for what could have been up to two years. Despite this loss of equipment, supplies and personnel, Mackintosh and his group still managed to complete the depot laying. On finishing the work and after their rescue, he and a companion attempted to return to the expedition base camp on foot by crossing the unstable ice. They disappeared and are assumed to have fallen through the ice with the date of death being given as 9th May 1916. The whole venture was to prove totally worthless however as the planned Trans Antarctic March never in fact took place due to Shackleton's ship the Endurance being crushed in the ice.
Mackintosh's widow remained at Beverley Crescent until 1918 when she moved in with her siblings in Bromham Road. She stayed there until 1923 when she re-married Captain Joseph Russell Stenhouse, who had been Mackintosh's Second in Command on the Aurora. Interestingly the eldest daughter of Aeneas and Gladys – Pamela returned to Bedford in June 1941 for her own wedding at St. Paul's Church. Aeneas's mother Annie remained in Bedford at Clarendon Street until 1903, then Campbell Road and finally Foster Hill Road before leaving the town for Sussex in 1911.
Further reading:
- Shackleton's Forgotten Men by Lennard Bickel (2001)
- The Lost Men by Kelly Tyler-Lewis (2006)
- Shackleton's Lieutenant edited by Stanley Newman (1990)
Aeneas Mackintosh by Trevor Stewart, 2015
Page last updated: 24th August 2015