Thomas Frank McLeod

Picture taken October 1916. Buenos Aires. McLeod is wearing the Polar Medal he was awarded from Scott’s 1910 expedition.
Awarded Bronze Polar Medal

It is widely believed that Thomas McLeod was born at Stornoway, on the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides, Scotland. However, recent research indicates that he was born in Glasgow. His mother was Barbara McLeod, a domestic servant employed at Garscube House, Maryhill, Glasgow. Tom was her illegitimate child, and he probably never knew his father.

Tom was taken to Stornoway at a very early age by his mother who was born there, and was brought up by his widowed grandmother in Point Street, close to the harbour. Tom grew up believing that he had been born on Lewis.

At around the age of 14, he joined the British Merchant Navy, having lied about his age. He went on to become one of the small band of accomplished Antarctic seamen having served on Scott’s 1910 “Terra Nova” expedition, Shackleton’s 1914” Endurance” and ,1921 “Quest” expeditions. He was one of the few able seamen to hold two Polar Medals. A Silver from Scott and a Bronze from Shackleton. He served in the Boer War, where he sustained an injury to his hand, which troubled him at times, to the extent that the amputation of fingers was considered during the Endurance expedition.

Stornoway circa 1890, The approximate location of Point Street, where Tom was brought up is indicated.

Point Street as it is today.

He is credited as being the one who retrieved Shackleton’s discarded bible from the flow, and later gave it to the Chilean family whom he stayed with in Punta Arenas. The bible was eventually presented to the Royal Geographical Society.

Tom was amongst the 22 men left stranded on Elephant Island, and in his own words: “ I weighed around 200 lbs when the Endurance sank, and went down to around 100 lbs before being rescued from Elephant Island.”

The building of the cairn on South Georgia in memory of Shackleton was McLeod’s idea. He dug out the foundations whilst others quarried rocks from the surrounding hillsides. The stone cairn was mainly designed and constructed by him.

S.S. MELITA.

Very little is known in Scotland about McLeod. He never married, and on 10th May 1923 emigrated to Canada on the S.S.Melita. He had been invited to emigrate to Canada by George Vibert Douglas, the geologist on the Quest Expedition. Douglas promised to help him find employment, and for the first two years he earned a living fishing off Bell’s Island. For ten years he held the job of a school caretaker, and later a night watchman. He had settled in the Kingston. Ontario, district and in 1947 he moved to The Rideaucrest Retirement Home. Montreal Street, Kingston, where he lived for many years. By mid 1960 his health deteriorated and he moved to the nearby House of Providence, which was a nursing home, where he passed away on 16th December 1960. McLeod’s obituary, which appeared in the Kingston-Whig Standard Newspaper in December 1960 states that he died in his 87th year.

He was 87 years, 8 months and 3 days old, to be exact. The second longest lived of the men from the Endurance.

Bakewell , at the end of the Endurance expedition in late 1916 wrote :

“Some of my shipmates were down to see me off. What I always thought impossible happened. Old McLeod, one of the most hard-boiled sailors I ever ran across, started to blubber like a baby when I bade him goodbye.”

It is rather sad to think that Bakewell and Mcleod lived out the twilight years of their lives, living not all that far apart from each other, but never knew it.

Tom , was once asked by the local Canadian press why he had never married. He replied:

“When you go to the store to buy a bird, you must have enough money to buy a cage for it. Well I never had enough money to buy a house in which to put a wife”.

McLeod in old age

Sometime before he died he was asked did he want his polar medals returning to Scotland, He declined saying “Scotland did nothing for me, why should I?” What about Lewis then? “They did even less!” He asked that the medals be sent to the Royal Geographical Society in London. McLeod died intestate (without having made a will). He must have had a change of mind as he gave his medals to a close friend in Canada.

Frank Wild in his book “Shackleton’s Last Voyage” paid his own tribute to this remarkable seaman, “Old Mac scraped the foremast - a difficult job on account of the heavy rolling – but it greatly improved our appearance. This fine old seaman is a product of the old –time sailing ships, a real sailor of a type only to rare today.”

Thomas is buried in Cataraqui Cemetery. Kingston.Canada. City plot, Row 4-4 N.

Note: His year of Birth is totally incorrect

McLeod’s grave, Cataraqui Cemetery. Kingston. Ontario. Canada. Note the misspelling of Shackleton’s surname, also the wrong year for the Quest expedition

A.B. Thomas McLeod on Scott’s 1910 “Terra Nova.”

McLeod on “The Quest” 1921

McLeod on board the Endurance 1914 on its way from England to Buenos Aires.

McLeod taken in 1950 at the Rideaucrest Retirement Home.