Tom Crean (explorer)

Tom Crean
Crean on the Endurance Expedition, February 1915
Native name	Tomás Ó Cuirín (or Ó Croidheáin)[1]
Birth name	Thomas Crean
Born	(1877-02-16)16 February 1877 Gurtuchrane, Annascaul, County Kerry, Ireland
Died	27 July 1938(1938-07-27) (aged 61) Bon Secours Hospital, Cork, Ireland
Buried	Ballynacourty, Annascaul, County Kerry, Ireland
Allegiance	United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
Service/branch	Royal Navy
Years of service	1893–1920
Awards	Albert Medal (1913) Polar Medal (1904, 1913, 1916)
Spouse(s)	Eileen Herlihy
Children	3
Signature

Thomas Crean (Irish: Tomás Ó Cuirín; c. 16 February 1877^[2] – 27 July 1938) was an Irish seaman and Antarctic explorer who was awarded the Albert Medal for Lifesaving (AM).

Crean was a member of three major expeditions to Antarctica during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, including Robert Falcon Scott's 1911–1913 Terra Nova Expedition. This saw the race to reach the South Pole lost to Roald Amundsen and ended in the deaths of Scott and his party. During the expedition, Crean's 35-statute-mile (56 km) solo walk across the Ross Ice Shelf to save the life of Edward Evans led to him receiving the Albert Medal.

Crean left the family farm near Annascaul, in County Kerry, to enlist in the Royal Navy at age 16. In 1901, while serving on Ringarooma in New Zealand, he volunteered to join Scott's 1901–1904 Discovery Expedition to Antarctica, thus beginning his exploring career.

After his experience on the Terra Nova, Crean's third and final Antarctic venture was as second officer on Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. After the ship Endurance became beset in the pack ice and sank, Crean and the ship's company spent 492 days drifting on the ice before undertaking a journey in the ship's lifeboats to Elephant Island. He was a member of the crew which made a small-boat journey of 800 nautical miles (1,500 km) from Elephant Island to South Georgia Island to seek aid for the stranded party.

After retiring from the navy on health grounds in 1920, Crean ran his pub the South Pole Inn in County Kerry with his wife and daughters. He died in 1938.