Henry Worsley (explorer)

Henry Worsley was born on 4 October 1960 at the Garrett Anderson Maternity Home in Belsize Grove, London.[3][4][5] He was the only son of General Sir Richard Worsley GCB OBE (1923–2013) and his first wife, Sarah Anne "Sally", eldest daughter of Brigadier J. A. H. Mitchell, of the British Embassy, Paris.[6][7] It has been stated that he was related to Frank Worsley, the captain of explorer Ernest Shackleton's ship, the Endurance.[8] From childhood he had a strong interest in the Antarctic explorers of the early twentieth century.[9]

Worsley was educated at Selwyn House, a private prep school, and at Stowe School, then an all-boys independent senior school in Stowe, Buckinghamshire. A keen sportsman, he captained the school cricket and rugby teams while at Stowe. He did not attend university, and entered the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst after completing school to train as an army officer.[1]

Worsley was a soldier in the British Army for 36 years. He served with the Royal Green Jackets and later The Rifles.[9] In 1988, he passed the Special Air Service (SAS) selection course and served in 22 SAS Regiment.[1] He was Commanding Officer of the 2nd Battalion Royal Green Jackets from 2000 to 2002,[1][7] and commanded the 2001 British military operation in Afghanistan, known as "Operation Veritas".[10] Later in 2005-2006, Worsley led the torch party team for the UK that transitioned operational responsibility of volatile Helmand Province from the US to the UK leading to the establishment of Camp Bastion in a remote part of the province.[11] He also served in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and Kosovo.[9] His final tour before retirement was as a Special Operations Officer based in the Pentagon, liaising on behalf of the British Army with United States special operations forces.[1]

On 12 April 1980, Worsley was commissioned in the Royal Green Jackets, as a second lieutenant.[12] He was promoted to lieutenant on 12 April 1982,[13] to captain on 12 October 1986,[14] to major on 30 September 1992 (having attended Staff College),[15] and to lieutenant colonel on 30 June 2000.[16] He retired from the army on 4 October 2015.[9][17]

On 12 October 1993, Worsley was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) "in recognition of distinguished service in Northern Ireland".[18] On 19 April 2002, he was awarded the Queen's Commendation for Valuable Service "in recognition of gallant and distinguished services in the former Yugoslavia during the period 1 April 2001 to 30 September 2001".[19]

In 2008, he led an expedition to pioneer a route through the Transantarctic Mountains, reaching a point 98 miles (157 km) from the South Pole. The expedition commemorated the centenary of Shackleton's Nimrod Expedition. He returned to the Antarctic in 2011, leading a team of six in retracing Roald Amundsen's successful 870-mile (1,400 km) journey in 1912 to the South Pole, marking its centenary. In completing the route, he became the first person to have successfully undertaken the routes taken by Shackleton, Robert Falcon Scott and Amundsen.[9]

Worsley lived in Fulham, London. On 20 February 1993, he married Joanna, the daughter of Andrew Stainton, at St Mary's Church, Chilham, Canterbury, Kent.[26] Together, they had two children; a son, Max, and daughter, Alicia.[1][24]

In December 2017, his widow and two children visited South Georgia Island to inter his ashes in a place that he loved and near his lifelong idol, Ernest Shackleton.[2]

• Worsley, Henry (2011). In Shackleton's Footsteps: A Return to the Heart of the Antarctic. London: Virgin Books. ISBN 978-1905264933.

• David Grann: The White Darkness, New York : Doubleday, 2018, ISBN 978-0-385-54457-3

• Official expedition site Archived 26 November 2019 at the Wayback Machine
• Henry Worsley at IMDb