Antarctica yields explorer8217;s wallet

CHRISTCHURCH, JANUARY 18: A wallet found after it was lost 84 years ago in Antarctica has been linked with a long dead English school teac...

CHRISTCHURCH, JANUARY 18: A wallet found after it was lost 84 years ago in Antarctica has been linked with a long dead English school teacher, Arnold Patrick Spencer-Smith. New Zealand conservators working at the 1911 hut of Englishman Captain Robert Scott on Ross Island in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, found the green leather wallet tucked away.

It is thought to belong to Spencer-Smith, one of Sir Ernest Shackleton8217;s men, marooned on Ross Island in 1915. Workers from the Christchurch-based Antarctic Heritage Trust were replacing rusty metal bed springs in the hut at Cape Evans, when they found what first appeared to be a tobacco pouch, wedged in a gap between two bunks. It was not clear who it belonged to, although it was near the bed of Spencer-Smith who died of scurvy when returning from a depot-laying mission in 1916.

Brought back to Christchurch and examined, the wallet contained vital clues about its owner photographs of a man and three boys outside a tent, individual photos of two boys, tickets for atram ride in Cape Town, South Africa, and a ferry pass dated November 21, 1914 to Sydney8217;s Cockatoo Dock. It contained no money.

Images scanned from the photos were e-mailed by The Australian newspaper to a New South Wales police forensic expert, Detective acting Sergeant Phil Redman. Redman, who usually specialises in composite sketches of criminals and reconstructions of victims8217; faces, overlayed the photo of the mystery man with a photo of Spencer-Smith from a history book. Both faces had distinctive hooded eyes, flared nostrils and the same forehead shape. 8220;The shapes are very, very similar and they just overlay perfectly,8221; said Redman.

8220;They really were quite closely matched.8221; Redman said both photos were taken from a similar angle but he could not say it was Spencer-Smith for certain, without further tests and due to the bad quality of the image he had to work with.

Spencer-Smith, a British teacher, was chaplain and photographer for an expedition that sailed to Antarctica on the Aurora fromSydney, where the ship was refitted. Their task was to lay food depots for Shackleton8217;s trans-Antarctic crossing. In May 1915, the Aurora broke its moorings at Cape Evans during a blizzard and drifted off, leaving 10 men marooned. Despite a lack of equipment, the men proceeded with their mission. However, on the way to Mount Hope, Spencer-Smith collapsed from scurvy. He died on March 8, 1916.