The Coronation 1911 Medal awarded to Superintendent B. E. S. Ninnis, St. John Ambulance Brigade, later Lieutenant, Royal Fusiliers, who was killed on Sir Douglas Mawson’s Australasian Antarctic Expedition on 14 December 1912 when he fell into a crevasse whilst part of a three man sledging team surveying King George V Land

Coronation 1911, St. John Ambulance Brigade (Supt. B E. S. Ninnis) edge bruising, very fine £500-£700

Belgrave Edward Sutton Ninnis was born in Streatham, Surrey, on 22 June 1887, the son of Chief Commissioner Belgrave Ninnis, St. John Ambulance Brigade, who had served as Staff Surgeon aboard the Discovery in Sir George Nares’ expedition to the Arctic in 1875-76. Ninnis was commissioned from the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, as a Second Lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers (Territorial Force) on 18 March 1908, and also joined the St. John Ambulance Brigade.

In 1911, following in his father’s footsteps, Ninnis joined Sir Douglas Mawson’s Australasian Antarctic Expedition in London. Mawson, then aged 28, had accompanied Shackleton on the Nimrod Expedition to the Antarctic in 1907-09, during the course of which he had reached the South Magnetic Pole, and was the first man to climb Mount Erebus. After declining an invitation to join Captain Scott’s Terra Nova Expedition, he decided to launch his own Antarctic Expedition to King George V Land, the unexplored sector of the Antarctic immediately south of Australia. On 2 December 1911, Mawson’s 36-man party, together with 49 huskies under the care of Ninnis, sailed from Hobart in the Expedition’s boat Aurora, and landed at Commonwealth Bay, Antarctica on 8 January 1912. After wintering over in Antarctica, the following summer five three-men parties were sent out from the base camp at Cape Denison to explore the area. Ninnis, along with Mawson and the Swiss mountaineer Xavier Mertz, formed the Far Eastern Party, whose intention was to push rapidly with the 17 surviving dogs eastwards over the northern slopes of the plateau. Heading east on 10 November 1912, they made good progress, and were crossing a glacier on 14 December 1912 when disaster struck, as Ninnis fell through a snow-covered crevasse. Mertz has earlier skied over the crevasse lid, and Mawson was on his sledge with his weight dispersed, but Ninnis was on foot tending to the dogs, and his weight breached the crevasse. Along with Ninnis, six of the dogs, most of the party’s rations, their tent, and other essential supplies disappeared into the massive crevasse some 480 km east of the main base.

Mawson and Mertz were now left with ten days’ food for themselves, no food for the surviving 11 dogs, no tent, and the prospect of a nightmare 316 mile journey back to the base camp at Cape Denison. Mertz died on the return with over 100 miles still to go, but Mawson, by a super-human effort, and in a state of near collapse, somehow managed to struggle on, and made it back to the Cape Denison on 8 February 1913, just in time to see the Aurora sailing away. After another winter spent in Antarctica, he finally arrived back in Adelaide on 26 February 1914.

Ninnis’ body was never recovered, and he is buried deep under the glacier that now bears his name. Whilst with the Expedition he had been promoted Lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers on 1 January 1912, and for his services in the Antarctic he was posthumously awarded the Silver Polar Medal with clasp ‘Antarctic 1912-14’.

Note: The medals awarded to the recipient’s father, Chief Commissioner Belgrave Ninnis, St. John Ambulance Brigade, were sold in these rooms in September 2018.