James Francis (“Frank”) Hurley

15 October, 1885 – 16 January, 1962

Recommended Reading

Hurley, Frank, Argonauts of the South, New York, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1925.

–––––. Diaries, 5 Nov. 1914 – 25 Apr. 1917, kept while a member of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914 – 1917, together with an edited typescript, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, ML MSS 389/2.

–––––. Diaries, 21 Aug. 1917 - 13 Aug. 1918, kept while official photographer to the Australian Imperial Force, Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales, ZML MSS 389/5, items 1-5.

–––––. Pearls & Savages, New York, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1924.

–––––. Series 1. Diaries Item No. 2, the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 26.4 cm. n.p., Canberra, National Library of Australia.

–––––. Shackleton’s Argonauts, Sydney, Angus and Robertson, 1948.

McGregor, Alasdair, Frank Hurley – A Photographer’s Life, Penguin/Viking, 2004.

Newton, Gael, The Perfect Picture in South With Endurance, Simon & Schuster, 2001.

Wharton, Margery, Postcards of Antarctic Expeditions — A Catalogue: 1889 – 1958. I point to this book especially because it contains a 1909 postal card portrait of Shackleton commercially signed by  JFH.

Recommended viewing

Hurley, Frank, Cine footage portraying the ITAE, Weddell Sea Party, 1914 – 1917. See British Film Institute South (1998) and Endurance(1933, narrated by Frank Worsley).

–––––. Photographs, monochrome glass plates of various sizes, ‘plastic’ negatives, Paget plates, hand colored lantern slides, composite images & other assorted pictorial oddments portraying the ITAE, Weddell Sea Party, 1914- 1917, including one-of-a-kind albums from Christie’s, St James’s; Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington; British Film Institute, Berkhamstead and London; Macleay Album, Christie’s, St. James’s; Mitchell ImageLibrary, Sydney; National Library of Australia, Canberra; Royal Geographical Society, London; Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge; The Royal Collection Trust, Windsor; private collections.

Shane Murphy 4320 E Beaver Creek Road, Rimrock, AZ  86335

shanemurphy@me.com

Bio

The Observations & Commentary of Expedition Members

Storekeeper/motor expert Thomas Orde-Lees on Friday, 3 September, 1915:

Hurley, our photographer, is an interesting character. He is Australian—very Australian & was photographer on Sir Douglas Mawson’s recent Australasian Antarctic expedition to Adelie Land. As a photographer he excels & I doubt if his work could be equaled even by Ponting, but it is not only as a photographer but as a general handy man that he has proved his efficiency. Having started life in some engineering firm, he is an extraordinarily able mechanic, especially at all tin-smithing and brass work. Being very good natured in lending a helping hand, he is invaluable to us as a general repairer. The ingenious ice-melter and other clever devices that he has constructed for us are monuments to his manipulative skill. He runs our little electric light plant admirably, having at one time been an electrician in the Sydney post office. In addition to all this, he is one of the dog drivers as I have before stated. He is certainly one of our hardest workers for he is almost always at work, & the more difficult the job the more he seems to revel in it. I have seen him drill a hole in a watch glass with the tang of a broken file fixed in an ordinary brace—a job requiring extraordinary skill & patience. In spite of all this he is not conceited nor does he give himself airs, though unfortunately he is rather too free with his tongue to be an ideal companion and a little inclined to let his prejudices run riot, as I have previously indicated, but apart from this he is quite a good chap & of his intrinsic merit there cannot possibly be two opinions. His interest in the expedition, on his own admission, is mainly a commercial one so it is sometimes a case of “one for you & two for me,” but he never really lets this stand in the way of his zeal for the general efficiency of the expedition. Occasionally he gets on my nerves rather banging doors and talking loudly to anyone about when he is on nightwatch. In fact, I don’t reckon to get much sleep when he is on watch.

Shackleton (in Hurley’s diary) Friday, 21 April, 1916:

To whom this may concern viz my Executors assigns etc. Under is my signature to the following instructions. In the event of my not surviving the boat journey to South Georgia I here instruct Frank Hurley to take complete charge & responsibility for exploitation of all films & photographic reproductions of all negatives taken on this Expedition; the aforesaid films & negatives to become the property of Frank Hurley after due exploitation in which the moneys to be paid to my executors will be according to the contract made at the start of the expedition. The exploitation expires after a lapse of eighteen months from date of first public display. I bequeath the big binoculars to Frank Hurley.

Shackleton following the rescue:

[Hurley] was one of the most active workers on the Expedition. Extremely clever, could do anything mechanically: always at work: splendid photographer: good for all schemes. No coward and a worker in the boats [going to Elephant Island] and fertile in devising schemes for bettering conditions. Thus you see a man of resource and intelligence... 

Physicist Reginald James on Sunday, 9 January, 1916:

Today I reach the advanced age of 25 years. Hurley gave me a pencil, a photographic retouching pencil, with which this was written: “Jan 9th also anniversary of Boss’s farthest South on his last expedition.”

Seaman Walter How interviewed by James Fisher:

He was a very clever fellow, Frank Hurley.

Captain Frank Worsley on Sunday, 24 January, 1915:

Hurley the irrepressible … like a clucking bird in the Tpsail yardarm is taking a colour photo of the ship & ice … from the snug comfort of the [crow’s nest]. He is a marvel — with cheerful Australian profanity he perambulates alone aloft & everywhere, in the most dangerous & slippery places he can find, content & happy at all times but cursing so if he can get a good or novel picture. Stands bare[headed] & hair waving in the wind, where we are gloved & helmeted, he snaps his snap or winds his handle turning out curses of delight & pictures of Life by the fathom.

Second-in-Command Frank Wild in the London Daily Chronicle, 9 November, 1916:

Hurley, the photographer, has secured the most wonderful Antarctic pictures that have ever been obtained. In all I should think we have between seven and eight thousand feet of cinematograph films and hundreds of still pictures. The crushing of the Endurance in the ice, the abandoning of the ship, her foundering, and camp scenes on the ice floes of the Weddell Sea, and our life on Elephant Island, will again live on the screen. I should think that this is the first occasion on which a cinematograph film has ever been taken of a ship going down. Even when Sir Ernest rescued us, and our interest in this kind of work vanished, Hurley stuck it to the end, and he got the final scenes when we were taken off.

The Rescue. 30 August, 1916.