Editing Ernest Shackleton (section)

== Between expeditions, 1909–1914 ==
=== Public hero ===
[[File:Ernest Shackleton Vanity Fair 1909-10-06.jpg|thumb|upright=0.8|Caricature of Shackleton in ''[[Vanity Fair (British magazine)|Vanity Fair]]'', 6 October 1909, captioned "The South Pole"|alt=See caption]]
On Shackleton's return home, public honours were quickly forthcoming. He was received by [[King Edward VII]] on 10&nbsp;July 1909, and raised to a [[Commander of the Royal Victorian Order]].{{sfn|Fisher|Fisher|1957|p=263}}<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=28271|page=5461|date=16 July 1909}}</ref> He received a [[Knight Bachelor|knighthood]] in the King's Birthday Honours list in November, becoming ''Sir Ernest Shackleton''.{{sfn|Fisher|Fisher|1957|p=272}}<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=28321|page=9763|date=24 December 1909}}</ref> The [[Royal Geographical Society|RGS]] awarded him a gold medal; a proposal to present him with a smaller medal than that earlier awarded to Captain Scott was not acted on.{{sfn|Fisher|Fisher|1957|p=251}} Each member of the ''Nimrod'' Expedition shore party received a silver [[Polar Medal]] on 23&nbsp;November, Shackleton himself receiving a [[medal clasp|clasp]] to attach to his earlier medal.{{sfn|Fisher|Fisher|1957|p=272}}<ref>{{London Gazette|issue=28311|page=8665|date=23 November 1909}}</ref> He was also appointed a Younger Brother of [[Trinity House]], a significant honour for British mariners.{{sfn|Fisher|Fisher|1957|p=263}}

Besides the official honours bestowed on Shackleton, his Antarctic feats were greeted in Britain with great enthusiasm. Proposing a toast to Shackleton at a lunch given in his honour by the Royal Societies Club, [[Lord Halsbury]], a former [[Lord Chancellor]], said: "When one remembers what he had gone through, one does not believe in the supposed degeneration of the British race. One does not believe that we have lost all sense of admiration for courage [and] endurance".{{sfn|Huntford|1985|pp=298–299}} The heroism was also claimed by Ireland: the Dublin ''[[Evening Telegraph (Dublin)|Evening Telegraph]]'s'' headline read "South Pole Almost Reached by an Irishman",{{sfn|Huntford|1985|pp=298–299}} while the ''Dublin Express'' spoke of the "qualities which were his heritage as an Irishman".{{sfn|Huntford|1985|pp=298–299}}

Shackleton's fellow polar explorers expressed their admiration; [[Roald Amundsen]] wrote, in a letter to RGS Secretary [[John Scott Keltie]], that "the English nation has by this deed of Shackleton's won a victory [...] which never can be surpassed."{{sfn|Fisher|Fisher|1957|pp=242–243}} [[Fridtjof Nansen]] sent an effusive private letter to Shackleton's wife, praising the "unique expedition, which has been such a complete success in every respect."{{sfn|Fisher|Fisher|1957|pp=242–243}} The reality was that the expedition had left Shackleton deeply in debt, unable to meet the financial guarantees he had given to backers.{{sfn|Huntford|1985|p=314–315}} Despite his efforts, it required government action, in the form of a grant of £20,000 (equivalent to £{{formatnum:{{Inflation|UK|20000|1910}}}} in {{Inflation-year|UK}}){{Inflation-fn|UK|df=y}} to clear the most pressing obligations, and it is likely that many of his debts were written off.{{sfn|Huntford|1985|p=314–315}}

=== Biding time ===
[[File:Shackleton lecture poster.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|Shackleton embarked on an extensive lecture tour in which he talked not only about his own polar journeys but also those of Scott and [[Roald Amundsen]].|alt=A poster advertising a talk presented by Shackleton]]
In the period immediately after his return, Shackleton engaged in a strenuous schedule of public appearances, lectures and social engagements. He then sought to cash in on his celebrity by making a fortune in the world of business.{{sfn|Fisher|Fisher|1957|pp=284–285}} Among the ventures that he hoped to promote were a tobacco company,{{sfn|Huntford|1985|pp=351–352}} a scheme for selling special postage stamps to collectors—overprinted "King Edward VII Land", based on his appointment as Antarctic [[postmaster]] by the New Zealand authorities{{sfn|Huntford|1985|p=312}}—and the development of a Hungarian mining concession he had acquired near the city of [[Nagybanya]], now part of [[Romania]].{{sfn|Huntford|1985|pp=323–326}}

As none of these enterprises prospered, Shackleton's main source of income was his earnings from lecture tours. He still harboured thoughts of returning south, even though in September 1910, having recently moved with his family to [[Sheringham]] in Norfolk, he wrote to Emily: "I am never again going South and I have thought it all out and my place is at home now."{{sfn|Fisher|Fisher|1957|pp=284–285}} He had been in discussions with Douglas Mawson about a scientific expedition to the Antarctic coast between [[Cape Adare]] and [[Gaussberg]], and had written to the RGS about this in February 1910.{{efn|name=Mawson's expedition}}{{sfn|Riffenburgh|2004|p=298}}

Any future resumption by Shackleton of his quest for the South Pole depended on the results of Scott's [[Terra Nova Expedition|''Terra Nova'' Expedition]], which had sailed from Cardiff on 15&nbsp;June 1910.{{sfn|Turley|1914|p=211}} By early 1912, the world was aware that the pole had been conquered by the Norwegian Roald Amundsen, but the fate of Scott's expedition was not then known.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/race-south-pole-scott-amundsen |title=The race to the South Pole: Scott and Amundsen |work=Royal Museums Greenwich |access-date=9 February 2024 |quote=[On] 14 December 1911, Amundsen raised the flag of Norway at the South Pole. Scott [...] reached the South Pole on 17 January 1912, disappointed to learn that Amundsen had beaten him to it. [...] Amundsen’s success was celebrated worldwide. |url-status=live |archive-date=10 May 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230510054520/https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/race-south-pole-scott-amundsen}}</ref> Shackleton's mind turned to a project that had been announced, and then abandoned, by the British explorer [[William Speirs Bruce]], for a continental crossing via the South Pole, starting from a landing point in the [[Weddell Sea]] and ending in McMurdo Sound. Bruce had failed to acquire financial backing, and was happy for Shackleton to adopt his plans,{{sfn|Huntford|1985|p=367}} which were similar to those being followed by the German explorer [[Wilhelm Filchner]] who had left [[Bremerhaven]] in May 1911; in December 1912, the news arrived from [[South Georgia]] that Filchner's expedition had failed.{{efn|name=Filchner's expedition}}{{sfn|Huntford|1985|p=367}} In Shackleton's own words, the transcontinental journey was the "one great main object of Antarctic journeyings" remaining, and now open to him.{{sfn|Shackleton, ''South''|loc=preface, p. vii}}