Lionel Greenstreet

Shackleton’s original choice of Chief officer ( D.G.Jeffrey ) withdrew due to being called up on active service. Lionel was in Scotland when he received a call from a friend telling him of the vacancy. He wrote to Worsley in the hope of being accepted. Meanwhile Lionel had also applied for a Naval Commission but was kept waiting for an answer. The day before the Endurance was due to sail he received a wire from Worsley asking him to “Come down to Plymouth”.

Lionel arrived thinking he was to attend an interview, only to be told that the job was his and he had better go off and get his kit together. This he did and arrived 30 minutes before Endurance set sail!

Shortly after his return from the Antarctic, he married Mille Baddeley Muir. They tied the knot on Wednesday 26^th September 1917 at Christchurch. Sutton, Surrey. As World War One was still raging, they were married by special licence.

Earlier that year, Monday 5^th February 1917 to be exact, Greenstreet had gained a commission as 2^nd Lieutenant with the Inland Water Transport Royal Engineers in charge of various craft. He Captained a Royal Navy tugboat and took charge of barges on the Tigres. He even returned to the South American continent to bring home to Britain a tug from Rio de Janeiro that had been purchased by the War Office.

After the war he was employed as a Technical Officer at Richborough, dealing with Continental Cross Channel Tug Services and Train Ferries. He also held the posts of Berthing Master and Assistant Marine Superintendent. In 1920, he obtained employment with the shipping company Furniss Withy & Co. and became Manager of one of their Marine Insurance branch offices.

By the time World War Two broke out, Lionel was over 50 years of age, and by March 1940, he had joined the Royal Naval Reserve as a Temporary Lieutenant. He served in rescue Tugs in the Atlantic and North Sea.

Lionel was demobilised as a Commander Royal Naval Reserve and returned to his post with Furniss Withy & Co. He managed to negotiate early retirement and went to live in the seaside town of Brixham, Devon in England.

On Tuesday 18^th October. 1955 (his first wife having died some time ago) he Lionel married Audrey Day at St. Luke’s Church, Chelsea, London . Neither of his two marriages had produced any children of his own, but he was Uncle to a number of Nephews and Nieces. His Nephew Richard Greenstreet, writes:

“He would have made a great father. He always had a twinkle in his eye, full of fun and playing jokes. One always felt that he was up to some sort of mischief. He lived his life to the full.

He lectured on his experiences with the Endurance as well as others during his travels on the high seas. As children, we found him to be a wonderful teller of stories of his life and those of his and his shipmates on the Endurance. Fortunately he lived long enough to be able to recount the same stories for our own children to hear first hand.”

Over the years, Lionel attended many reunion parties and Naval Functions. Along with Green and How, he attended the commissioning of H.M.S. Endurance, the Royal Navy’s Antarctic patrol ship, at Portsmouth in October 1970.

Lionel Greenstreet was the last of the Endurance party to pass away; he was also the longest-lived, having died at the age of 89 years, 9 months and 24 days, to be exact. He died on Saturday 13^th January 1979.

He was cremated at Worthing in West Sussex. It was a cold winter’s day with a scattering of snow on the ground. Very appropriate conditions for the last of the heroes of the Endurance. His ashes were scattered in the grounds of the Norwich Crematorium, the city where his second wife Audrey was born, and a tree planted there in his name.

With thanks to Richard Greenstreet. (Nephew of Lionel Greenstreet)