The Nimrod Murders - Simon Beaufort

On 30 July 1907, members of the British Antarctic Expedition, led by Ernest Shackleton, sailed down the Thames on the tiny, refurbished sealer Nimrod. Some six months later, in February 1908, the expedition landed in Antarctica. At Cape Royds Shackleton and his companions built a hut and set up camp. They then began their long wait for the following spring, when Shackleton would head into the icy unknown in an attempt to become the first man ever to reach the South Pole. In the worldwide fame and glory that followed the return of Shackleton s party to civilisation, little was ever said about a dark incident that almost halted the expedition before it ever sailed from London s East India Docks. On the eve of departure of the Nimrod to the Antarctic the body of the assistant biologist was found in the East India Docks. Without a doubt he had been murdered. Raymond Priestly, just short of his 21st birthday, had been appointed expedition geologist and was one of the first on the scene and it fell to him to undertake an investigation, along with Inspector William Taylor, an old school friend of Shackleton s, into the events surrounding this dark deed. He had no knowledge of the danger into which he would soon be plunged.