b. 23/10/1887 Harlesden, Middlesex. d. 08/05/1916 Antarctica.
DATE OF AM ACTION: 09/10/1915 to 20/03/1916 Ross Sea Party, Antarctica.
Victor G Hayward AM
Victor George Hayward was born 23 October 1887 at 5 Manor Park Road, Harlesden, North London. He was the 12th of 14 children of Francis Checkley Hayward and Mary Jane Fairchild. His father became a senior executive of the London and North Western Railway. Hayward was educated at an Essex boarding school, and after attending a London business college was employed as an accounts clerk in the City. From an early age he had been fascinated by stories of adventure, a particular favourite, acquired as a Sunday School prize, being R M Ballantyne’s The World of Ice, or Adventures in the Polar Regions. Unprepared for a life of “bourgeois complacency”, Hayward took leave from his employers to spend seven months working on a ranch in northern Canada. On his return he found settling back into an office routine difficult, and applied to Shackleton’s office for a position on the newly announced Trans-Antarctic expedition. His offer to “do anything” secured him his place in the Ross Sea party.
The Ross Sea party’s expedition ship Aurora arrived in Antarctica in January 1915. When the shore party was marooned after Aurora was blown from her moorings, Hayward became an accomplished seal hunter, helping to boost the party’s depleted stocks of food. The main depot-laying journey of the expedition began in September 1915. He was one of the party of six that undertook the longest stage of the depot-laying journey, from 80°S to the Beardmore Glacier. This journey was completed on 26 January 1916. On the return journey Mackintosh and parson/photographer Arnold Spencer-Smith fell victims to scurvy and had to be carried on the sledge, drawn by Joyce, Ernest Wild, Dick Richards and Hayward. When the food situation became acute Hayward, by now showing scurvy symptoms himself, nevertheless went forward with Joyce and Richards to obtain life-saving food and fuel for the rest of the party.
Eventually, after suffering both physical and mental breakdown, Hayward was lashed to the sledge and on 18 March was hauled to the shelter at Hut Point where, since the doorway was iced up, he was hoisted in through the window. Spencer-Smith died and was buried in the ice; Mackintosh barely survived. Joyce had expected Hayward to die, but he too survived. Helped by a diet of seal—plentifully available around Hut Point—the party slowly recovered. Mackintosh was anxious that as soon as possible they make the final stage of the return journey—the 13 miles (21 km) across the frozen surface of McMurdo Sound to the base at Cape Evans. The ice would not be safe until winter set in, in June or July, but Mackintosh and Hayward grew impatient. In early May they had recovered sufficiently to begin testing the ice. On 8 May Mackintosh announced that he and Hayward intended to walk across to Cape Evans, and against the urgent pleadings of Joyce, Richards and Wild, they set out at 1:00 pm., carrying only light supplies. Two hours later a blizzard swept over the Sound and they were lost from view. They did not arrive at Cape Evans, and no trace of their bodies was ever found, nor was the nature of their fate established.
Seven years after their struggle on the ice, in belated recognition, on 4 July 1923 Joyce, Richards, Wild and Hayward (the last two posthumously, Wild having died on active service in 1918) were awarded the Albert Medal, in recognition of their efforts to save the lives of Mackintosh and Spencer-Smith on the Barrier.
AM CITATION:
The Expedition had for its object the crossing of the Antarctic Continent from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea, via the South Pole, a distance of about seventeen hundred miles. Sufficient supplies for the journey could not be carried, and it was therefore necessary to establish a chain of depots on the Ross Sea side as far southwards as possible. With this end in view the ship ” Aurora ” was sent to McMurdo Sound at the southern extremity of the Ross Sea and, as it was intended that the vessel should winter there, a portion only of the stores and equipment was disembarked. McMurdo Sound was reached in January, 1915, but during a blizzard in May, the ” Aurora ” was blown out to sea and was unable to return, and the nine members of the Expedition who- were on shore were left stranded. They recognised that failure to establish the depots would undoubtedly result in the loss of the main body and resolved, in spite of their grave shortage of equipment to carry out the allotted programme. For this purpose a party under the command of Sub-Lieutenant A. L. Mackintosh, R.N.R., and consisting of the Reverend A. P. Spencer-Smith, Messrs. Joyce, Richards, Hayward and Wild and three other members who assisted for a part of the outward journey left Hut Point, Ross Island, on October 9th, They took with them two sledges and four dogs, and 162 days elapsed before the surviving members of the party were back at Hut Point, the total distance covered being approximately 950 miles. Mr. Spencer-Smith had to be dragged on a sledge for 42 days, mainly by hand labour, the distance covered being over 350 miles. When more than 100 miles remained to be covered the collapse of Lieutenant Mackintosh imposed an additional burden on the active members of the party who were all suffering from scurvy and snow blindness and were so enfeebled by their labours that at times they were unable to cover more than 2 or 3 miles in 15 hours. Mr. Spencer-Smith died when only 19 miles remained to be covered, but Lieutenant Mackintosh was brought in safely to the base.
BURIAL LOCATION: UNKNOWN – LOST IN ANTARCTICA.
LOCATION OF MEDAL: PRIVATELY HELD. SOLD AT DNW IN 2017 FOR 44,000.
Acknowledgement:
Dix Noonan Webb – Images of the Hayward AM and Polar Medal.