|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Shackleton Scholarship Fund - Recent Achievements Falkland Islands Newsletter, No.87, September 2004 Ten years after the death of Lord Shackleton in 1994, which led to the creation of the Shackleton Scholarship Fund (SSF), more than sixty scholars have benefited from its support. In return they have contributed much to academic research on a bewildering variety of topics and enhanced the quality of life of the people of the Falkland Islands. Several scholarships are awarded each year, in two categories: academic research and quality of life. More information and an application form can be found on the SSF website: www.shackletonfund.com . The application deadline is March 17th each year. The fund was founded in memory of Lord Shackleton whose reports signposted the way to successful Falklands economic development after the 1982 war, and his father, Sir Ernest Shackleton, the Antarctic explorer. In this progress report, we let the achievements of recent scholars tell the graphic story. Environmental Degree for Church Canon The Chairman and founder of the SSF, David Tatham, a former Falkland Islands Governor, was particularly gratified to congratulate SSF scholar Canon Dr Stephen Palmer, who was Rector of Christchurch Cathedral from 1991 to 1996, playing a major part in its restoration campaign. His research project into the human impact on the environmental history of the Falkland Islands and South Georgia has led to the award of a PhD from the University of Portsmouth. His thesis is a fascinating, clear-cut and very readable account of development over the past two centuries incorporating case studies on sealing, whaling, fishing and agriculture. Appropriately, he pays tribute to Lord Shackleton for his radical 1976 and 1982 reports which led to far-reaching social, economic and agricultural reforms, the creation of the modern fishing industry, which has brought unprecedented prosperity, and investigation of the prospects for offshore oil exploration. All these topics are covered in Canon Palmer's comprehensive researches and admirably analysed in his thesis. You can read more about his work on his website - http://www.newportparish.org.uk/thesis.htm You will also learn more about his versatile activities, from his birth into the fourth generation of a Lowestoft fishing family, to his Royal Navy career as a radio mechanic and a Royal Navy Reserve Chaplain and his career as a clergyman. He is now Vicar of Newport in the Isle of Wight and the Bishop of Portsmouth's ecology and environment adviser. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Master Bee-Keeper! Adventurous Artist in Shackleton's Footsteps The latest of several artists to derive inspiration from the SSF is Molly Sheridan, an outstanding candidate who travelled furthest and produced more in publicity as well as paintings than any of her predecessors. Her three-month odyssey took her to land and seascapes which Ernest Shackleton witnessed nearly a century earlier in South Georgia, and to isolated fjords and bays to find abandoned whaling stations and remote penguin rookeries. She braved raging seas and force-ten blizzards, sketched on the pitching deck of a small motor cruiser, gained passage on a Russian cruise ship, and painted her graphic images on canvas in the boatshed, warmed by three generators, at the British Antarctic Survey Base at Kind Edward Point. Her output has been prodigious - sixty oil and watercolour paintings encompassing the variety of life in South Georgia, hundreds more sketches for future work, art classes for keen BAS scientists sketching huddled out of the wind under Shackleton's memorial cross, exhibitions and extensive media publicity in the Falkland Islands, Britain, France, Germany and Norway, and sales of many paintings, with some of the proceeds and a picture generously donated to the SSF. What David Tatham called "a model visit and a model report" has spawned the idea of a South Georgia Government backed "Artist and Writers' Programme" to sponsor visits by photographers, painters, sculptors, writers, historians and archaeologists. It was a new dimension for an adventurous artist, who studied at Edinburgh University, has lived in Iran, Zimbabwe, and the French Pyrenees, and is married to Guy Sheridan, a commando officer and experienced ice mountaineer, who fought in the 1982 Falklands War and led the recapture of South Georgia. Her visit was greatly facilitated by the South Georgia Post-Mistress, Mrs Sarah Lurcock, her local sponsor. "Spider Man" Unearths New Species Scottish academic Doctor Alastair Lavery has discovered at least 21 species of spider previously unknown in the Falkland Islands, and a few previously unknown to science worldwide. This is twice the number of spiders previously thought to be native to the Islands. Following world-wide research to identify the spiders, some of them of South American origin, he plans to publish a guide cataloguing his work. Dr Lavery, from Kinross, has impressive expertise with a PhD degree on the ecology of Scottish spiders. He is also head of education in Scotland for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. His SSF project is his first on spiders outside the United Kingdom. It was, he says, "both scientifically successful and hugely enjoyable in a wild and beautiful part of the world", though, sadly, some of his carefully prepared specimens were squashed en route back to Scotland! Invaluable Shipping Research It is appropriate that invaluable Falklands shipping records have resulted from research by an Australian master mariner and fisheries expert, Lisa Romero, respected by her former employers in the youth development sail training ship "Spirit of New Zealand" as an outstanding "sea woman". From fragile Falklands and also United Kingdom records, she has created a data base of sailing ship arrivals and departures from 1842 to 1916, the year Ernest Shackleton returned to the Falklands after his abortive trans-Antarctic expedition. This article first appeared in the Falkland Islands Newsletter, Edition
87, September 2004. The Falkland Islands Association is an independent
organisation which brings together those who support the continuing
freedom of the people of the Falkland Islands. Its Constitution states
that its objectives are to assist the people of the Falkland Islands to
decide their own future for themselves without being subjected to pressure
direct or indirect from any quarter |
|
Introduction, Acronyms, Census, Freedoms,
Geography,
Government, Governors,
Lifestyle, Listed Buildings,
Poetry,
Royal Visits |
|
| Copyright & Disclaimer |
Site Designed and Maintained by eb-host.com |