Victor Hayward
(1887-1916)

Died aged c. 29

Victor George Hayward AM (23 October 1887 – 8 May 1916) was a London-born accounts clerk whose taste for adventure took him to Antarctica as a member of Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914–17. He had previously spent time working on a ranch in northern Canada and this experience, combined with his "do-anything" attitude, was sufficient for him to be engaged by Shackleton as a general assistant to the Ross Sea party, a support group with a mission to lay depots for the main cross-continental party. Hayward quickly proved himself to be hard-working and resourceful. He was one of the ten members of the shore party that was marooned when the Ross Sea party's expedition ship Aurora broke from its McMurdo Sound moorings during a storm and was unable to return. In difficult circumstances he played a full part in the efforts of the stranded group to fulfil its mission, despite its shortages of food, proper clothing, and equipment. During the main depot-laying journey on the Great Ice Barrier in 1915–1916 Hayward was one of the six who marched to the Beardmore Glacier to lay the last of the required chain of depots. On the return leg the party was struck with scurvy, which caused the death of Arnold Spencer-Smith. Although suffering badly himself, Hayward helped bring the rest of the party off the Barrier to the relative safety of the Hut Point shelter. Hayward disappeared on 8 May 1916 while walking across the frozen surface of McMurdo Sound in the hopes of reaching the expedition's base at Cape Evans. His body was never found. Seven years later Hayward was posthumously awarded the Albert Medal for his efforts to save the lives of his stricken companions on the Barrier journey.

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