4 November 2024 marked the centenary of the death of Old Etonian Edward James Hope Vere. Born in 1885, he was the son of Colonel James Charles Hope Vere, of Craigie Hall and Blackwood in Lanarkshire and Marie Elizabeth Françoise Guillemin of Pau, in France.

After his education at Eton (1898-1903), Hope Vere decided on a military life but reasons of health forced him to abandon the Army for the Diplomatic Service, in which he was appointed an Attaché in 1905. Between 1906 and 1924 he held diplomatic posts at Madrid, Tangier, Lisbon, Constantinople, Belgrade, Athens, Cairo, Buenos Aires, Montevideo and finally at Christiania (Oslo). In addition to his diplomatic career, he was appointed a Justice of the Peace for Lanarkshire, a member of the King’s Bodyguard for Scotland and a member of the Order of Malta. In his last few years in the Diplomatic Service, his health deteriorated and he retired to France, where he died at Biarritz on 4 November 1924.

At Eton, Hope Vere made a lifelong friend in Harold Frederic (Harco) Andorsen (1885-1980), with whom he shared many interests and holidays.  On Hope Vere’s death he bequeathed his personal and diplomatic papers to Andorsen, who received them from Hope Vere’s Trustees in 1925. After Andorsen’s death, his widow donated Andorsen’s own papers, along with Hope Vere’s, to Eton College Library.

During the cataloguing of these two collections earlier in 2024 and in answer to an enquiry, unknown and unique material on the Polar explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922) was discovered, buried within the Hope Vere papers.

When Shackleton died in South Georgia on 5 January 1922, his body was sent to Montevideo, Uruguay for transfer to Britain. Hope Vere, then British Chargé d’Affaires at the city, oversaw the arrangements – from the arrival of the ship that carried Shackleton’s body on 29 January 1922 and his memorial service, held with full military honours – to his departure, at the insistence of Shackleton’s widow Emily, back to South Georgia on 16 February for burial.

Hope Vere’s diary, scrapbook, and correspondence provide a brief account of these events.

Among Hope Vere’s diplomatic papers is a very moving letter from Emily Shackleton, thanking him for all he had done in Montevideo. She describes her feelings of grief and loss on the death of her husband and explains her decision to have his remains returned to South Georgia rather than to Britain, for burial.

A few months after the cataloguing of these two collections, another album of photographs which further illustrate Shackleton’s return journey from South Georgia to Montevideo was identified in the Eton collections. It was almost certainly part of Hope Vere’s papers, which were initially placed there, but was catalogued separately.

Possibly taken by a local Montevideo photographer as an official tribute for presentation to the various dignitaries involved, the album features 30 high-quality images with captions of the ceremonies and memorials held in Shackleton’s honour.

Jill Geber, Project Archivist