Robert Clark (zoologist)

Dr Robert Selbie Clark FRSE (11 September 1882 – 29 September 1950) was a Scottish marine zoologist and explorer. He was the biologist on Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917, and served as the director of the Scottish Home Department Marine Laboratory, at Torry, Aberdeen.

Robert Clark was born on 11 September 1882 in Aberdeen, the son of William Clark. He attended Aberdeen Grammar School and then Aberdeen University from where he graduated with an M.A. in 1908. In 1911 he attained a B.Sc. and became Zoologist to the Scottish Oceanographical Laboratory, Edinburgh, a post he held until he was appointed naturalist to the Marine Biological Association in 1913. While at the Scottish Oceanographical Laboratory, he worked on some of the Antarctic specimens that William Speirs Bruce had brought back from the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition of 1902–04.

He was a natural sportsman, a keen golfer and angler, and was selected to play cricket for Scotland in 1912. He had a reserved manner, not given to laughing or joking, but with a strong work ethic and a passion for biology.

On 9 August 1914 the Endurance departed Plymouth, carrying Shackleton and his crew on what was intended to be the first expedition to cross Antarctica from the Atlantic to the Pacific via the South Pole. Over 5000 applications for places in the crew had been received. The expedition was a failure: the ship became trapped in pack ice and was eventually destroyed by the pressure of the ice, but all the crew of the Endurance were eventually rescued after Shackleton and five men made an 800-mile sea journey to fetch help. Clark was a hard worker, and, despite his dour manner, quickly won the respect of the crew with his willingness to volunteer for some of the more arduous or unpleasant jobs aboard ship, although he was the butt of several jokes. He was not the politest of men, and a little verse was composed around his apparent inability to remember to say "please". The crew boiled some spaghetti and placed it in one of his collecting jars, causing him momentary excitement at the thought of having discovered a new species, and a standing joke claimed the penguins seen alongside were said to shout out "Clark, Clark" and chase after the ship whenever he was at the wheel. He worked arduously at his biological recording from the moment the expeditions set out, recording the specimens encountered using dredging nets as the ship progressed southwards. When the ship became trapped in the ice he continued with his work, dissecting penguins and recording the changes in the plankton levels in sea.

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