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Endurance Obituaries |
 Endurance Obituaries |
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WILLIAM LINCOLN . BAKEWELL
(26/11/1888 - 21/05/1969)
BORN: JOLIET. ILLINOIS. AMERICA
DIED: DUKES. MICHIGAN. AMERICA
NICKNAME : WILL / BILL
DUTY : ABLE SEAMAN
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BAKEWELL, JUNE 1964
ENGLAND
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BAKEWELL, 1916
BUENOS AIRES
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Awarded Bronze Polar Medal |
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William Bakewell was something of a Maverick. He ran away from Joliet. Illinois , at the age of 11 and headed down to Missouri. He worked as a farm hand near Sikeston. Missouri, until the age of 14. During this time he ventured as far as Kansas.
At around the age of 15, William rode the boxcars to Michigan. He got kicked off at Seney (in the upper Peninsula of Michigan ), where he worked the lumber camps for a while, and later worked his way into the Serpent River area of Canada. After a while he headed West along the Canadian railroad and down into Montana, where he resumed work as a ranch hand.
Four years later, he headed West once more , down to San Francisco, California, where in January of 1914, he gained his first real sea job by joining the crew of a British ship “The Philadelphia” as an able seaman. He sailed on a number of ships and in July of 1914, he picked up work in Newport. South Wales on the “Golden Gate”.
The ship foundered off Montevideo and he found himself and one Perce Blackborow who he had befriended , stuck in Buenos Aires without a ship. He pretended to be Canadian knowing that a British ship would be more sympathetic to a subject of the British Empire, and on seeing the Endurance he said “It was love at first sight “.
The Endurance was three crew men short at this time, as Shackleton had dismissed a number of crew upon his arrival in Buenos Aires on the advice of Worsley.
Bakewell was taken on as an able seaman at a wage of £8 per month!
He helped Blackborow stowaway on the “Endurance”, and after the expedition ended Bakewell spent some time in Argentina where he managed two of Campbell’s sheep ranches some 100 miles west of Santa Cruz. He eventually joined the British Merchant Navy and saw action in World War1. During which time he was unfortunate enough to experience being sunk by enemy torpedoes twice.
On one occasion he survive for several days floating on a raft before being rescued.
In 1921 he drifted back to his hometown of Joliet, where he built his own boat which he named “The Shamrock” ( possibly because of Shackleton ? ) and sailed it down the DesPlaines river and the Illinois canal between Chicago and Joliet.
Later that year he drifted away again and his family eventually received a letter telling of his intention to join Shackleton on another adventure (The Quest Expo). Bakewell, on the advice of his family changed his mind and headed south, sailing the islands off the coast of Florida, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Bahamas and then Texas as a seaman in the Merchant Navy.
Two years later in 1923 he once more returned to Joliet and got a job with the E.J. & E.Railroad and eventually became a towerman for the Rock Island Railroad . He must have had enough of the adventurous roaming life of a seaman, as he married Merle in 1925 and they produced a daughter, Elizabeth.
During World War II he worked at the Diesel Electric Plant in La Grange, Illinois. In August of 1945 they bought a farm in Michigan where he died in 1969 at the grand old age of 80. William is buried in the Lutheran Cemetery in Skandia.Michigan.
In 1918 when the expedition members were presented with their Polar Medals Bakewell could not be traced. Many years later when this was pointed out ,a special one was cast just for Bill , and sent to him in 1964 soon after he and his proud daughter Elizabeth had attended the 50th reunion of the sailing of the Endurance which was held in London.
William was a member of the Antarctic Club of British Expeditions and the Antarctican Society of the United States, and over the years kept in touch with the Blackborow family and Ernie How’s family.
In 1967 Bakewell had the honour of having a newly discovered Antarctic island named after him ( Bakewell Island ). Bakewell was the only American member of the expedition and Shackleton said of him :
“He was a cut above the rest of the seamen”.
William Bakewell was a man full of wanderlust, and lived a truly remarkable romantic adventurous life.
With thanks to Elizabeth Rajala ( Daugher of William Bakewell ) and
Nina and Sarah Rajala . ( Grand-daughters of William Bakewell )
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