1. Frank Wild participated in five expeditions to Antarctica during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, for which he was awarded the Polar Medal with four bars, one of only two men to be so honoured, the other being Ernest Joyce.
16 Facts About Frank Wild
1. 2.
Frank Wild was born in Skelton-in-Cleveland, North Riding of Yorkshire, the eldest of eight sons and three daughters born to Benjamin Wild, a schoolteacher, and his wife Mary, a seamstress.
3.
Frank Wild joined the Merchant Navy in 1889 at the age of 16, receiving his early training in sail in the clipper ship Sobraon.
4.
On returning to the United Kingdom in 1916, Frank Wild volunteered for duty during World War I and was made a temporary lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve.
5.
Shackleton died of a heart attack on South Georgia during the expedition, and Frank Wild took over command and completed the journey, combating unfavourable weather to Elephant Island and along the Antarctic coast.
6.
On 24 October 1922, Frank Wild married Vera Alexandra Altman, the widow of a tea planter of Borneo, at Reading Register Office.
7.
Frank Wild bought some land in the Mkuzi valley in Zululand where he tried to grow cotton.
8.
Frank Wild subsidised his meagre income by giving the occasional lecture on the Endurance expedition.
9.
Frank Wild married for the second time on 18 March 1931.
10.
Frank Wild earned enough money not only to buy a car but to take two holidays in the hinterland and coast of South Africa.
11.
Frank Wild received the offer of a job as a storekeeper on the Babrosco Mine near Klerksdorp from his friend Jack Scott, the mining magnate.
12.
Frank Wild had been awarded the Civil List pension from Downing Street.
13.
Frank Wild was cremated on 23 August 1939 at Braamfontein Cemetery in Johannesburg.
14.
Frank Wild was awarded the CBE in the New Year Honours List of 1920, and in May 1923 he was made a Freeman of the City of London.
15.
Frank Wild was the recipient of a number of awards for his contributions to exploration and for advancing geography: Frank Wild received the Royal Geographical Society's Back Award in 1916 and the Society's Patron's Medal in 1924.
16.
On 29 September 2016, a statue of Frank Wild was unveiled in his hometown of Skelton-in-Cleveland.