All well

Pennell and Atkinson in The Atavist Magazine

Building off research I originally posted on this blog, I’ve made my longreads debut in The Atavist Magazine with the 12,500 word story of Pennell and Atkinson’s relationship.

You can read it here. Enjoy the gorgeous illustrations by Eoin Ryan!

If you’d like to share the story on social media, please repost my original posts from X and Bsky 🙂

I’ve also included a reference list/bibliography below since the magazine’s format didn’t allow one to be included in the article itself.

Bibliography & References

Books & Articles

From Ice Floes to Battlefields, Anne Strathie

Cherry, Sara Wheeler

The Worst Journey In The World, Apsley Cherry-Garrard

The Last Great Quest, Max Jones

A First Rate Tragedy, Diana Preston

South With Scott, Edward R.G.R. Evans

With Scott: The Silver Lining, T. Griffith Taylor

Scott’s Last Expedition, R. F. Scott

Silas: The Antarctic Diaries and Memoir of Charles S. Wright, ed. Colin Bull

The Quiet Land: The Diaries of Frank Debenham, ed. June Debenham Back

“Surgeon-Captain E. L. Atkinson, DSO, AM, RN” by Adrienne Reynolds (in Forest School 1834-1984, 1984)

“Edward Leicester Atkinson: Physician, Parasitologist, and Adventurer” by William C. Campbell (The Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, 1991)

“Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?” by Chris Turney (Polar Record, 2017)

In The Spotlight: Denis Lillie, Bethlem Museum of the Mind https://museumofthemind.org.uk/blog/in-the-spotlight-dennis-lillie

Manuscript Sources

  • Canterbury Museum, New Zealand
    • Manuscript: Harry Pennell Private Diary 1905-09 (MS 433/1)
    • Manuscript: Harry Pennell Private Diary 1909-14 (MS 433/2)
    • Manuscript: Harry Pennell Official Diary 1911-12 (MS107)
    • Letters: Harry Pennell to James Dennistoun, 1913 (2016.1.180-81)
    • Letters: E.L. Atkinson to Frankie Davies, 1913-16 (2023.4.10-23)
  • Bearnes, Hampton & Littlewood Auctioneers
    • Letters: Harry Pennell to Frankie Davies, 1913-16
  • National Library of New Zealand (Alexander Turnbull Library)
    • Letters: Oriana Wilson to the Kinseys, 1913 (NLNZ MS Papers 0022-43)
    • Letters: Constance Souper to Mrs. Kinsey, 1913 (NLNZ MS Papers 0022-44)
    • Letters: Harry Pennell to Mrs. Kinsey, 1913-15 (NLNZ MS Papers 0022-46)
    • Letters: E. L. Atkinson to Mrs. Kinsey, 1913-16 (NLNZ MS Papers 0022-41)
  • Royal Geographical Society, UK
    • Letters: Harry Pennell, Oriana Wilson, E.L. Atkinson in collection HLP (1910-18)
  • Scott Polar Research Institute, UK
    • Letters: E. L. Atkinson to Apsley Cherry-Garrard, 1913-28 (MS 559/24/1-49;D)
    • Letters: E.L. Atkinson to Kathleen Scott, 1913-15 (MS 1453/46/1-12;D)
    • Letters: Denis G. Lillie to Apsley Cherry-Garrard, 1914-18 (MS 559/86/1-21;D)
    • Letters: Harry Pennell to Kathleen Scott, 1913-15 (MS 1453/146/1-7;D)
    • Letters: Catherine Lady Nicholson to Apsley Cherry-Garrard (MS 559/97/1-2;D)
  • National Archives, UK
    • Harry Lewin Lee Pennell Service Record 1898-1916
  • Pennsylvania State University, PA
    • Letters: Pennell & Oriana to Pennell’s mother, 1905-1912 (MS 1969-0024R)

In

4 responses

  1. Mercy Of Antarctica Avatar
    Mercy Of Antarctica

    Ever since I stumbled across this website and the story of Pennell and Atkinson, I have been completely fascinated by it. Congratulations on getting your article in the magazine!!!!

    I wanted to ask if any personal diaries exist for Atkinson. It’s so touching to read Pennell clearly write in his diary that he is on love with him. I wonder if the intensity of the feeling was reciprocated by Atch.

    I only ask because he seems to get completely enthralled with the woman who would become his first wife. As stated by the writer, Pennell seems to be a little despondent and rushes to get engaged. It just makes me a little sad. Did Pennell misunderstand the nature of their relationship? Did Atch not realize how serious Pennell took the relationship?

    One can only wonder. 😢

    Reply
    1. admin Avatar
      admin

      Hi! Sadly Atkinson didn’t leave any diaries behind 🙁 he was a very private man and none of his personal papers were donated directly to any archives, we only have his letters to others to go on for the most part.

      I think he did love Pennell very much in his way but neither of them were the kind of guys to go against what was normal for their era. Romantic friendships were not as acceptable after a certain time in a man’s life, so he was definitely looking for a woman to marry (and unlike Pennell he had experience with/interest in women).

      Pennell seems to have understood and accepted himself as someone who got into one-sided relationships with guys… this was not his first rodeo. But his particular reaction in this case (rushing to get engaged) makes me think that he might have harbored some unrealistic expectations, or that perhaps this relationship was more intense and serious, at least on his side, than others in the past…! Sadly we can’t know Atkinson’s POV!

      Reply
      1. Mercy of Antarctica Avatar
        Mercy of Antarctica

        Admin, do you think they would have had an easier time if they weren’t naval men? At this point in history, men, particularly in the arts, were having relationships with other men. (Thinking of Charles Ricketts and Charles Shannon) They were still discreet, but they existed. But it’s one thing being a painter or writer having a relationship with a other man and being a naval officer. I know the armed forces tending to push officers to marry after a certain period of time.

        Reply
        1. admin Avatar
          admin

          Yes, absolutely. The simple fact that these two were of a completely separate world than the Bloomsbury group/Edwardian bohemian scene made all the difference I think. So even though there were plenty of queer relationships going on at the time, it was as if it was on another planet from them! And so they were much more susceptible to social pressures because there was no knowledge of “another way” so to speak.

          Interestingly, the higher up you were in the polar celebrity hierarchy, the more likely you were to have contact with these artistic scenes — Captain Scott met his wife Kathleen, a sculptor who trained with Rodin, at a party thrown by Mabel Beardsley, sister of Aubrey; Kathleen and Apsley Cherry-Garrard were both close friends with George Bernard Shaw and mixed with people like the Mitfords and James Lees-Milne.

          But Pennell and Atch, career officers and strongly conservative, probably had very little interest in people like that, let alone opportunity to mix with them.

          Even the fact that Cherry, not a navy man, and rich to boot, had the freedom not to marry until he was quite old and sick (and in need of nursing), shows the difference in how lives would play out based on stuff like this.

          Reply

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