Harry McNish

Harry "Chippy" McNish
Photo of McNish cropped from the 1914–1917 Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition crew photo.
Born	(1874-09-11)11 September 1874 Port Glasgow, Inverclyde, United Kingdom
Died	24 September 1930(1930-09-24) (aged 56) Wellington, New Zealand
Occupation	Carpenter
Spouse(s)	Jessie Smith Ellen Timothy Lizzie Littlejohn

Henry McNish (11 September 1874—24 September 1930), often referred to as Harry McNeish or by the nickname Chippy, was the carpenter on Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917. He was responsible for much of the work that ensured the crew's survival after their ship, the Endurance, was destroyed when it became trapped in pack ice in the Weddell Sea. He modified the small boat, James Caird, that allowed Shackleton and five men (including McNish) to make a voyage of hundreds of miles to fetch help for the rest of the crew.

After the expedition he returned to work in the Merchant Navy and eventually emigrated to New Zealand, where he worked on the docks in Wellington until poor health forced his retirement. He died destitute in the Ohiro Benevolent Home in Wellington.

Harry "Chippy" McNish was born in 1874 in the former Lyons Lane near the present site of the library in Port Glasgow, Renfrewshire, Scotland. He was part of a large family, being the third of eleven children born to John and Mary Jane (née Wade) McNish. His father was a journeyman shoemaker. McNish held strong socialist views, was a member of the United Free Church of Scotland and detested bad language. He married three times: in 1895 to Jessie Smith, who died in February 1898; in 1898 to Ellen Timothy, who died in December 1904; and finally to Lizzie Littlejohn in 1907.

There is some confusion as to the correct spelling of his name. He is variously referred to as McNish, McNeish, and in Alexander Macklin's diary of the expedition, MacNish. The McNeish spelling is common, notably in Shackleton's and Frank Worsley's accounts of the expedition and on McNish's headstone, but McNish is also widely used, and appears to be the correct version. On a signed copy of the expedition photo his signature appears as "H. MacNish", but his spelling is in general idiosyncratic, as revealed in the diary he kept throughout the expedition. There also is a question regarding McNish's nickname. "Chippy" was a traditional nickname for a shipwright; both this and the shorter "Chips" (as in wood chips from carpentry) seem to have been used.