Childhood
Ernest Shackleton was born on 15 February 1874 in Kilkea
near Athy, County Kildare, Ireland, about 46 miles (74 km) from Dublin.
Ernest's father was Henry Shackleton, and his mother was Henrietta Letitia
Sophia Gavan. His father's family was Anglo-Irish, originally from Yorkshire,
England. His mother's family was Irish, from counties Cork and Kerry.[5] Ernest
was the second of their ten children and the first of two sons; the second,
Frank, achieved notoriety as a suspect, later exonerated, in the 1907 theft of Ireland's
Crown Jewels.[6] In 1880, when Ernest was six, Henry Shackleton gave up his
life as a landowner to study medicine at Trinity College, Dublin, moving his
family into the city.[7] Four years later, the family moved again, from Ireland
to Sydenham in suburban London. Partly this was in search of better
professional prospects for the newly qualified doctor, but another factor may
have been unease about their Anglo-Irish ancestry, following the assassination
by Irish nationalists of Lord Frederick Cavendish, the British Chief Secretary
for Ireland, in 1882.[7]
Education
From early childhood Shackleton was a voracious reader, which sparked a passion for adventure.[8] He was schooled by a governess until the age of eleven, when he began at Fir Lodge Preparatory School in West Hill, Dulwich, in south east London. At the age of thirteen, he entered Dulwich College.[7] The young Shackleton did not particularly distinguish himself as a scholar, and was said to be "bored" by his studies.[7] He was quoted later as saying: "I never learned much geography at school ... Literature, too, consisted in the dissection, the parsing, the analysing of certain passages from our great poets and prose-writers ... teachers should be very careful not to spoil [their pupils'] taste for poetry for all time by making it a task and an imposition."[7] In his final term at the school, however, he was still able to achieve fifth place in his class of thirty-one.[9]
Education
From early childhood Shackleton was a voracious reader, which sparked a passion for adventure.[8] He was schooled by a governess until the age of eleven, when he began at Fir Lodge Preparatory School in West Hill, Dulwich, in south east London. At the age of thirteen, he entered Dulwich College.[7] The young Shackleton did not particularly distinguish himself as a scholar, and was said to be "bored" by his studies.[7] He was quoted later as saying: "I never learned much geography at school ... Literature, too, consisted in the dissection, the parsing, the analysing of certain passages from our great poets and prose-writers ... teachers should be very careful not to spoil [their pupils'] taste for poetry for all time by making it a task and an imposition."[7] In his final term at the school, however, he was still able to achieve fifth place in his class of thirty-one.[9]