A man of all trades

Motor Sledges

On the Terra Nova expedition Scott had pinned a great deal of hope on the motor sledges which he put under the "able supervision of Day and Lashly”, and it was no fault of theirs that the ‘motors' gave so much trouble. Commander Ellis points out that “Lashly's naval training had made him more of a blacksmith than a mechanic, but he had mastered the mechanics of the motor sledges”, and Norwegian ski expert, Tryggve Gran said of William, "whatever he did he was first class. Day could not have had a more all-round helper". Photographer Herbert Ponting, no stranger to working in the frustrating Antarctic environment, was impressed by Day and Lashly's perseverance when the temperamental 'motors' kept failing: “Two days later, the axle-easing - repaired in a remarkable neat and workmanlike manner, and better and stronger than ever - was once more in place, I realized that Day and Lashly were men whom nothing could daunt and whose resource and skill were equal to any emergency." And later, "no praise could be too great for the persistence with which Day and Lashly struggled with these motors".

Scott, too, was impressed, and recalls how on one occasion "Day and Lashly worked all night on repairs in a temperature of -25°”. This persistence was no surprise to Captain Scott who had already written about it some years ago in his report of the Discovery expedition.

“Each difficulty only serves to show more clearly their resourcefulness. This particular trouble has called on the metal workers, and no sooner had we halted and unpacked the sledges than Skelton and Lashly were hard at work with pliers, files and hammers stripping off the torn metal and lapping fresh pieces over the weak places. They have established a little workshop in this wild spot, and for hours the scrape of the file and the tap of the hammer have feebly broken the vast silence. We have hopes of the lapping process which is now being effected, but it needs very careful fitting; each separate piece of metal protection is made to overlap the piece behind it, like slates on a roof! I should doubt whether such work could be done by people unaccustomed to dealing with these matters”.

Many Skills

Not only was William technically competent, but he had the ability to apply his skills to a wide range of situations. As a key member of the company of both the Discovery and the Terra Nova, he was held in high esteem. Charles Ford, Steward on the Discovery comments,

"The Naval personnel of the Discovery compose as fine a body of men as could be found anywhere. The engine room staff were to some extent isolated as they worked a good deal in the engine room, which in winter quarters was their work-shop. But I do know that Lashly was a man of fine character. He was exceptionally reserved and even retiring in manner, always helpful to anyone needing help. I know that the engineer, Skelton, thought the world of him".

Commander Ellis, when researching the book he wrote based on William’s diaries, discovered that:

"his shipmates remembered him, in their own words, as modest, reserved, hardworking, helpful, skilful, completely dependable, and a friend of all. One of them summed him up quite simply as the salt of the earth".

When Les Quartermain, Antarctic author and leader of the expedition to restore Scott’s Hut, was collecting material for his book Antarctica’s Forgotten Men, Clarence Hare, the ship’s steward on the Discovery, wrote to him about his mess-mate Bill Lashly:

“He was always ready to help anyone who needed it …one of the most popular men on the lower deck. With his engineering skill he could devise and make any sort of gadget that could be required by the scientists for any special work.”

One incident in particular illustrates William's skill and competence. On the final leg of the sea journey towards the Antarctic the Terra Nova met high winds. Within three days the wind was logged at force 10, the engine room pumps were blocked, and the water began to rise. Ponting recalls,

"During this time, mechanic Lashly worked up to his neck in the rushing water, trying to clear the suction pipe of the pump, but as the rising water now came in contact with the bottom of the big Scotch boiler, it became too hot for him to work there longer, and he had to abandon the effort .... In Lashly and Chief Engineer Williams, we had two splendid, efficient men, of whom no praise could be too great for the resource they displayed in those hours of peril ... As a last expedient, these two men set to work, in the sweltering heat, to cut through the steel bulkhead between the boiler and the hand pump shaft... Before midnight they had accomplished this difficult task".

Eventually the storm subsided and the flood waters were cleared. It is no wonder that he was described by Sir Clements Markham, the force behind the Discovery expedition, as “the best man in the engine room” and by engineer Reginald Skelton as ”the best man by far and away in the ship”.

It was William's adaptability which proved so useful to both expeditions. On the first, when Scott discovered the inadequacy of the ski boots, he records, “In fact, ski boots are still worn, and in some cases have been fitted with a stouter sole by the cobbling abilities of that excellent man-of-all-trades, Lashly.” And on the second expedition, "Today Wilson, Bowers, Cherry-Garrard, Lashly and I went to start the building of our first igloo. Cherry-Garrard had a knife which I designed and Lashly made." Cherry-Garrard comments on the need during the last Spring for a sledge-meter, the original having been lost: "Anyway, we found that we only had one left for the year, and this was more or less a dud... A lot of trouble was taken by Lashly to make another with a bicycle wheel from one of our experimental trucks”. And although William never smoked himself Ellis reports that he was happy to make Able Seaman Clarence Hare a three-pronged pipe cleaner which he continued to use long after the Discovery expedition had returned.