BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE ON ANN SAVOURS (MRS A.M SHIRLEY. Hon.D.-Litt.)

N.B. All publications under Savours

Career

Educated at Thistley Hough Grammar School for Girls, Stoke-on-Trent, at Royal Holloway College, London University (B.A. Hons. in History), at Burslem School of Art and at the Sorbonne. First post in the University of Aberdeen (King’s College Library); then for twelve years (1954 – 66) on the staff of the Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge. This period included a year’s sabbatical leave in Australasia working on a catalogue of polar and whaling mss. (S.P.R.I. mimeographed, 1963). Travelled outwards via the Suez Canal in the liner Arcadia (P&O) and home via Panama, the latter a nine weeks voyage in M.V. Mélanésien, a cargo and passenger vessel owned by Messageries Maritimes, Marseilles, calling at the French Pacific islands. She met her husband, Laurence Shirley, on board and they got engaged at Curaçao, West Indies. Joined the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich as Assistant Keeper (Manuscripts) in 1970. Custodian of Mss. 1973 – 77. Responsible for the Arctic Gallery and the display of Shackleton’s boat, the James Caird, on loan from Dulwich College. Also Research and Displays Officer for “Project Discovery” after the vessel’s handover by the Royal Navy to the Maritime Trust, c.1984. Retired 1987. Lecture and consulting tour of Australia, sponsored by British Council, 1989.

Publications:

Edited The Discovery diary of Edward Wilson, 1901 – 04 (London and New York, 1966), and Scott’s last voyage (London, New York and Amsterdam, 1974). Author of The Search for the North West Passage (London, Chatham Publishing, and New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1999). “Biography” of Captain Scott’s ship Discovery (now in Dundee), published September 1992 by Virgin Books, London under the title The Voyages of the “Discovery” This merited a “Best Book 0f the Sea” award and was reprinted in “limpback”, August 1994 and subsequently to the present. On the vessel’s centenary in 2001, an abridged edition was issued by Chatham Publishing in London and New York. With H.G.R. King, edited Polar Pundit (Cambridge, 1995), a book of reminiscences regarding Dr. Brian Roberts, C.M.G. Biographical essay on Sir Clements Markham, P.R.G.S. (1830 – 1916) was published in the 150th anniversary volume of the Hakluyt Society Encompassing the vast globe of the Earth, edited by R.C. Bridges and P.E.H. Hair, 1996. Another, well illustrated, article on Markham appeared in History Today, March 2001.

Member of ARTAF (the Archival Research Task Force), United Kingdom of the Meta Incognita Project in Canada, researching aspects of Sir Martin Frobisher’s Arctic voyages, 1576 – 78, published by the Canadian Museum of Civilisation in 1999. Contributor to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography as well as to sundry encyclopaedias and to the Polar Record, Geographical Journal, Mariner’s Mirror, etc. Delivered the Annual Lecture to the Hakluyt Society in 1986 on “Discovering the Discovery” (published 1987) and the Annual Lecture 2002 on “The North West Passage in the 19th Century : perils and pastimes of a winter in the ice”, published by the Society the following year. After ten years’ work off and on, the fourth volume of The South Polar Times, Midwinter 1912, was published in facsimile by the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge and J. and S.L. Bonham, London, in a collectors’ edition of 500 copies at £250 each in 2010. Beautifully designed by Vera Brice, the Introduction, extensive commentary and biographical notes on the contributors are by Ann Savours. The original had been edited in the Antarctic at Cape Evans, Ross Island by Apsley Cherry-Garrard in 1912, but was not reproduced in London (unlike the earlier volumes) on the return of Captain Scott’s Terra Nova expedition 1910-13. The same year, Ann Savours contributed the lead article in Northward Ho! A Voyage towards the North Pole 1773, the book of the exhibition held in the Captain Cook Memorial Museum, Whitby about the naval scientific and exploring voyage, commanded by the Hon. Captain Constantine John Phipps in H.M. Ships Racehorse and Carcass, 1773.

Polar travels, societies, etc.

Member, as a guinea pig, of the Cambridge Physiological expedition 1955

to Spitsbergen. Sailed to Macquarie Island in the Southern Ocean in Magga Dan as assistant algologist with A.N.A.R.E (Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions), 1960. Crossed Lappland by reindeer sledge with a Lapp (Same) 1954. Visited Churchill and York Factory on Hudson Bay with the Centre for Rupert’s Land Studies (University of Winnipeg) c. 1988. Lecturer during voyage to North Pole in Russian nuclear icebreaker, Yamal, August 2001. Longstanding member of the National Trust and the Royal Geographical Society. Member of R.G.S. Council, 1978 – 80. Received the Murchison Award from the Royal Geographical Society, June 2001. For a number of years liaised between the Geographical Club (the RGS dining club) and the Librarian, Map Curator and Archivist of the R.G.S. in the provision of grants by the Club for the repair and conservation of items in their care, a scheme which she initiated. Member of Council of the Hakluyt Society (founded 1846) at intervals 1980 to 2010. Elected a Vice President 2002-06.

For over ten years, until handing over to Dr. Sarah Tyacke in 2010, Ann “shepherded” the annual lectures set up in 1959 in honour of Professor Eva G.R. Taylor, between the sponsoring societies – the R.G.S., the Society for Nautical Research, the Royal Institute of Navigation and the Hakluyt Society. Sometime Honorary Research Fellow, Australian National University, Canberra and Exhibitioner, Royal Holloway College, University of London.

Hon. Secretary of the Society for Nautical Research, founded in 1910, January 1988 to December 1990 and member of Council at intervals, 1991 – 2000. Initiated the conference, held after the hand-over of Hong Kong, at the Merseyside Maritime Museum, with the Society for Nautical Research, on “British Ships in China Seas”, which resulted in a book with the same title, edited by Richard Harding, et al., published in 2004. Awarded an Hon. D. Litt. by the University of Kent in Canterbury Cathedral, in 2001. Lecturer and occasional outside examiner for M. Phil in Polar Studies, University of Cambridge, 1989 to 1998. Attended the reception at Buckingham Palace on 8th December 2011, given by the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, for those “involved in exploration and adventure”. She also attended, after an eleven hour train journey, the memorable “South Polesium” organised by Rob Stephenson of New Hampshire, and Falcon Scott, at Lunga House, near Oban, Argyll in May 2015.

Married Laurence Shirley in November 1961 in Cambridge, whom she had met aboard the M.V. Mélanésien travelling home from Australia. Laurence had been working as a volunteer-builder in the Himalayas at Dehra Dun for the Cheshire Foundation’s hospice, “Raphael.”Sons John and Nicholas born 1962 and 1966 respectively.  Laurence died in January 2003 at the end of a busy life as postmaster in Bridge, Kent and as a Kent County Councillor. Since he was a fan of traditional jazz, a great many villagers, friends, family and colleagues walked to the church of St. Peter’s, Bridge, behind the cortège. It was drawn by two black horses and led by a small group of jazz players. At his burial in the churchyard of St. Mary’s, Patrixbourne, the group played “Stranger on the Shore.” A video of all this was made by Mrs Joan Stringemore of Bridge, which was shown during the 20th birthday of the Bridge and Patrixbourne District Historical Society.