b. 25/12/1867 Hambledon, Hampshire. d. 12/06/1940 Hambledon, Hampshire.
DATE OF AM ACTION: January-February 1912 Antarctica.
William Lashley AM
The son of a farm worker, Lashly was born in Hambledon, Hampshire, a village near Portsmouth, England. At the time he joined Scott’s Discovery expedition in 1901, he was a 33-year-old leading stoker in the Royal Navy, serving on HMS Duke of Wellington. On this expedition, Lashly proved a success and was a member of Scott’s “Farthest West” party exploring Victoria Land in 1903.
A teetotaller and non-smoker, he was quiet and strong, good-natured, dependable and acknowledged by Reginald Skelton as ‘the best man far and away in the ship’. Before joining Scott’s next Antarctic expedition in 1910, he served as an instructor at the Royal Naval College, Osborne, on the Isle of Wight.
On Scott’s second expedition in 1911–1913, Lashly was initially in charge of one of the expedition’s two motor sledges which were to haul supplies southward in support of the polar party. However, the sledges quickly broke down, and the motor party had to switch to man-hauling the supplies.
On 4 January 1912, along with Lieutenant Edward Evans and Tom Crean, he was a member of the last support party to be sent back by Scott on his way to the pole. During the 730-mile (1,170 km) return journey, Evans became seriously ill with scurvy, and on 11 February, collapsed, unable to walk any further. Still 100 miles (160 km) from Hut Point camp and safety, he tried to persuade Lashly and Crean to leave him to save themselves, but they refused.
Strapping him onto the sledge, they pulled him for days until with only one to two days’ food rations left, but still four or five days’ sledge pulling to do, they had to stop. Lashly then stayed with Evans in the tent to nurse him while Crean walked the remaining 35 miles (60 km) alone in 18 hours to reach Hut Point camp, where he was able to fetch help. Extracts from Lashly’s polar journals, chronicling his tribulations with the motor sledges and the return journey with Evans, were included in Apsley Cherry-Garrard’s book, The Worst Journey in the World. Both Lashly and Crean received the Albert Medal for saving Evans’ life.
After returning from the Antarctic, Lashly retired from the Royal Navy with a pension, but promptly joined the reserves and served in World War I on HMS Irresistible and HMS Amethyst. Later he served as a customs officer in Cardiff. Upon his retirement in 1932, he returned to Hambledon where he lived in a house he called “Minna Bluff”, after one of the landmarks on the road to the South Pole. Lashly died on 12 June 1940.
AM CITATION:
At the end of a journey of 1,500 miles on foot the final supporting party to the late Captain Scott’s expedition towards the South Pole, consisting of Lieutenant Edward Ratcliffe Garth Russell Evans, R.N. (now Commander Evans, C.B.), Chief Stoker William Lashley, R.N., and Petty Officer (First Class) Thomas Crean, R.N., were 238 miles from the base when Lieutenant Evans was found to be suffering from scurvy. His condition rapidly became worse. When 151 miles from the base he was unable to stand without support on his ski sticks, and after struggling onward on skis in great pain for four days, during which Lashley and Crean dragged their sledge fifty-three miles, he collapsed, and was unable to proceed further. At this point Lieutenant Evans requested his two companions to leave him, urging that eighty-three miles lay between the party and the nearest refuge hut, and that unless they left him three lives would be lost instead of one. This, however, they refused to do, and insisted on carrying him forward on the sledge. Favoured by a southerly wind, Lashley and Crean dragged Lieutenant Evans on the sledge for four days, pulling for thirteen hours a day, until, on the evening of February 17, 1912, a point was reached thirty-four miles from a refuge hut, where it was thought possible that assistance might be obtained. During the following twelve hours, however, snow fell incessantly, and in the morning it was found impossible to proceed further with the sledge. As the party now had only sufficient food for three more meals, and both Lashley and Crean were becoming weaker daily, it was decided that they should separate, and that Crean should endeavour to walk to the refuge hut, while Lashley stayed to nurse Lieutenant) Evans. After a march of eighteen hours in soft snow Crean made his way to the hut, arriving completely exhausted. Fortunately Surgeon Edward L. Atkinson, R.N., was at the hut with two dog teams and the dog attendant. His party, on February 20, effected the rescue of Lieutenant Evans and Lashley. But for the gallant conduct throughout of his two companions Lieutenant Evans would have undoubtedly lost his life.
BURIAL LOCATION: UNKNOWN.
LOCATION OF MEDAL: UNKNOWN.
