Apsley Cherry-Garrard

Who was Apsley Cherry-Garrard?

Apsley George Benet Cherry-Garrard was an English explorer of Antarctica. He was a survivor of the Terra Nova Expedition and is acclaimed for his historical account of this expedition, The Worst Journey in the World. Born in Lansdowne Road, Bedford, as Apsley George Benet Cherry, the son and eldest child of Major General Apsley Cherry of Denford Park in Berkshire and his wife, Evelyn Edith, daughter of Henry Wilson Sharpin of Bedford. He was educated at Winchester College and Christ Church, Oxford where he read Classics and Modern History. While at Oxford he rowed in the 1908 Christ Church crew which won the Grand Challenge Cup at the Henley Royal Regatta.

His surname was changed from Cherry to Cherry-Garrard by the terms of his great-aunt's will, through which his father inherited the enormous Lamer Park estate near Wheathampstead in Hertfordshire. Apsley inherited the estate on his father's death in 1907.

Cherry-Garrard had always been enamoured by the stories of his father's achievements in India and China where he had fought with merit for the British Defence Forces, and felt that he must live up to his father's example. In September 1907, Dr Edward Adrian 'Bill' Wilson met with Captain Scott at Reginald Smith's home in Cortachy, to discuss another Antarctic expedition; Smith's young cousin Apsley Cherry-Garrard happened to visit and decided to volunteer.