Lewis Rickinson

Lewis Raphael Rickinson (born 21 April 1883 (Lewisham), died 16 April 1945 (Newbury, Berkshire)) was an English marine engineer. He is best known for his service in the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1916, for which he was awarded the Silver Polar Medal.

Rickinson was born on 21 April 1883 in Lewisham, which was then part of the County of Kent but has since become part of Greater London. His father was Charles Napier Rickinson and his mother was Emma Isaac Rickinson. As a man trained for work with marine engines, he signed on the Endurance as the chief engineer. Although the Endurance was rigged as a barquentine, it also had a coal-burning engine and spent much of its time under steam.

Under the expedition plans and the articles that Rickinson had signed, his job was to work the engines during the Antarctic summer of 1914-1915 to get the Endurance to the Filchner Ice Shelf. Once the vessel had reached her destination, she and her crew were supposed to unload the expedition leader, Sir Ernest Shackleton, and a shore party for expedition work in the interior of Antarctica. Rickinson and the ship's company were then supposed to steam north toward warmer waters to avoid the worst of the Antarctic winter of 1915. However, when the Endurance was beset by pack ice in the Weddell Sea, these plans could not be implemented. With all of the other members of the expedition, Rickinson was first forced to spend the winter in the depths of the southern Weddell Sea, and then shared the fate of his fellow explorers as castaways when the mother ship was crushed and sunk by the ice. After camping on the melting ice for some months, the ship's company and shore party were forced to take to lifeboats. Rickinson was assigned to the lifeboat Stancomb Wills.

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