Ernest Wild

Who was Ernest Wild?

Henry Ernest Wild AM, known as Ernest Wild, was a British Royal Naval seaman and Antarctic explorer, a younger brother of Frank Wild. Unlike his more renowned brother, who went south on five occasions, Ernest Wild made only a single trip to the Antarctic, as a member of the Ross Sea party in support of Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914–17. He was one of the group of ten who were stranded ashore when the expedition's ship was blown from its moorings in a gale and were forced to improvise in order to survive. He played a full part in the party's main depot-laying journey, 1915–16, and in recognition of his efforts to save the lives of two comrades on that journey, he was posthumously awarded the Albert Medal. Having survived the expedition, he died while on active service with the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean Sea in March 1918.