#denis lillie

[evergreensounds]

Polar doodle page, the Lillie is a fanart of this self portrait

[gemlikeabovethebay]

Framed invitation from Denis G. Lillie to Charles Wright:

"It will give Mr. D. G. Lillie great pleasure if Mr. Charles Silas Wright will sledge over to tea in his rooms this afternoon. Thursday."

[decanost]

Doodles PT2:

[antarcticlovebirds]

I can’t help but think that this would make denis lillie happy

the ship where he spent some of the happiest years of his life overtaken by the creatures he loved to study

link

[lincolnellsworth]

various polar related arts that i honestly think were all requests from my sweetie @denisglillie

top row we have suzanne wilkins, douglas mawson, and THE PROF (edgeworth david. who remains unfinished to this day). bottom row we have the lovely denis g lillie <3

[thehutpoint]

I was studying these famous DIY canvas pants, you know, the ones that got stiff with dirt so Clissold mercifully washed them for Titus, who after getting his foldable again pants back donned them and did a little happy dance to the pianola tune.

It's not the only known Lawrence's expedition into the land of sewing, as he made a sackcloth balaclava during the winter, out of pure hatred he had for the felt helmets the expedition members were issued (no wonder, I get itchy from mere looking at it). The balaclavas worn by many expedition members neither warmed up his heart, so The Sackcloth Balaclava was created. This balaclava:

He looks weirdly cute in it. His another sewing feat were the breast pockets he slapped onto gis white woolen jacket, so he was not a stranger to the needle. Rare skill for a gentleman from ungodly wealthy family, who all his life had servants catering to him. Yes, in the military too, even a mere lieutenant in the British cavalry had two servants assigned.

But I was talking about the canvas pants, so let's get back to them and let's bask in their full sartorial glory for a minute:

I was staring a lot at these weird folds on his butt... Why yes, I do spend a lot of time gazing at the butt of Titus Oates. First, it's a very fine and well shaped butt and Denis Lillie does vehemently agree with me on that (according to Tryggve Gran Denis confessed he was blushing when he saw a fine man naked, well, I think he was blushing a lot when undressed Laurie was around):

Second, I was pondering what were these pants made of and where these folds came from. After some prolonged staring at Laurie's crotch (yes, I gaze at it too, these are the dark places studying the polar exploration can get you in 🤣), well, stare with me, please:

I found out the mystery folds extended to the front of the pants. My suspicion here is that Titus repurposed a sack and the folds were it's bottom, allowing it to expand when the sack was filled. He just cut the bottom in the middle, so one half landed in front, the other on the butt. By the way, in the front shot you can see also the marvellous breast pockets on his jackets.

If someone has other theory about what these folds might be, I'm eager to listen!

[birdiebowers]

[imaginingfromtheblock]

for the polar history recap posts, i’m dying to know more about lillie…deeply tragic and i’ve also heard something about the nickname ‘ooze’ and i desperately need to know more about that

LILLIE 😭😭😭😭😭😭❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

denis (also spelled dennis) gascoigne lillie was born in 1884, making him 26 when the terra nova set off for antarctica. he was trained in natural sciences at cambridge (although he didn't do too well on his exams) and was appointed as the ship's biologist—meaning he did not form part of the shore party in the hut in at cape evans, but remained on board the ship during the winter, studying antarctic marine biology including whales, plankton, and deep-sea creatures like sponges (like the one pictured above). his nickname "ooze" comes from his job as biologist—ooze refers to a specific kind of biological marine sediment that got pulled up in seabed dredges which lillie would then examine.

in silas's diary on the voyage south, he describes lillie:

Lilley—"Hercules'" or "Sequins" is rather a dreamer and asserts he can remember his former existences in this world. Much fun can be got from him if handled properly.

lillie was noted by other members of the expedition to be a bit of a crackpot, asserting that he was a persian and a roman in his past lives. and more than that, possibly:

Lillie had decided that he was not the marrying type, claiming that he had evolved beyond it. In later years Scott’s young Norwegian skiing expert Tryggve Gran recounted that as they crossed the Equator on the Terra Nova Lillie had revealed that he was a woman trapped in a man’s body. ‘When I see a naked man I blush,’ he allegedly said as the others sprawled shirtless on the deck in tropical sunshine, ‘I am split and I can’t help it. Luckily I understand myself and have the control to avoid doing anything wrong.’ Gran was a notoriously unreliable source, and it is hard to imagine anyone having the courage to say that under those circumstances; but perhaps Lillie did.

(from sara wheeler's cherry)

usually i would not recommend anyone trust anything that comes out of gran's mouth, but honestly i do buy this, because, well... vibes.

anyway, on the terra nova, lillie was notable for his talent at caricature, and several of his rather hilariously cruel drawings appeared (copied by wilson) in the south polar times, including this one of birdie:

while the shore party was in antarctica, lillie spent two winters in new zealand studying whales, fossils, and anthropology:

Lillie has been fossilizing & is off next month for 5 months whaling with the Norwegians. He is looking very well & very happy and is ‘a dear little chap’ to use Scott’s expression.

—pennell's diary, may 18 1911

after returning to england, taking the long way round on board the terra nova to continue his marine research, lillie took up residence at cambridge again, alongside deb, silas, priestley, and griff, to work up the scientific results from the expedition.

lillie also spent a lot of time with atch and pennell in 1913, frequently accompanying them to dine and see theater in london. he also drew (probably on board the ship) the caricature of them as the "antarctic lovebirds":

during the war, he was a conscientious objector—a "conchie," refusing to go to the front. it was an incredibly difficult position to maintain in the face of widespread societal opposition. he found solace in a continued and deepening relationship with cherry (who was also not at the front, though in his case for health reasons) as sara wheeler describes in her biography of cherry:

Currently working as a bacteriologist for the military, Lillie had been one of the few visitors at Lamer during the bad months in the middle of 1916. They became unusually intimate (‘I should love to see your chubby cheeks again’), and after one weekend Lillie scrawled with typical irreverence in his note of thanks that, ‘It was only my body which left you, for my ultimate Reality still walks behind your Bath chair and meditates about the many paths of your lovely garden. With love.’

and god i just need to copy these entire sections from the wheeler in here because they make me want to sob:

In September 1916 he had been transferred to the pathology lab of a military hospital in Bournemouth, which he loathed (‘no nice cliffs or sea birds, only sand banks and orange peel’), and was appalled to learn the next year that Cherry was poised to become engaged to Christine Davis (‘being unconventional and as near to nature as I can get, it seems all wrong to me that you should have to tie yourself up for the sake of Society’), but he strove, generally, to be optimistic, whereas Cherry was permanently resigned to his destiny. In August 1917 Lillie returned to Lamer for a week. Writing in advance with details of his train to Hatfield, he concluded that, ‘if a motor does not turn up the wings of joy will waft me those four-and-a-half miles bag included. So don’t worry.’ They had a wonderful time together. ‘I do hope,’ Lillie wrote when he was back in horrible Bournemouth, ‘your throat and the rest of you continues to get well and worthy of the sunny spirit which I see under the label ACG.'

though things seemed to be going as well as they could for lillie, shortly before the end of the war in early 1918, he suffered a nervous breakdown and landed in the notorious bethlem mental institution, known as bedlam. he was there for three years, and cherry was barred from visiting him.

he emerged for a short period of time in 1921, seemingly recovered, and took up lecturing in biology again at cambridge, but by the end of that year had relapsed and was institutionalized again.

frank debenham, writing to expedition agent j.j. kinsey in 1927 to solicit funding for SPRI, gave him an update:

Poor old Lillie is in less happy circumstances, the last I heard of him was that he was never likely to get out of Bedlam, a rather ghastly end up for poor old "Ooze's" brilliant promise.

lillie spent the rest of his life in institutions, and lived until the age of 78, dying in 1963. that was four years after the death of his friend cherry—who, despite constant attempts, was never allowed to visit him.

per UK law, lillie's medical records will be sealed until 2063, 100 years after his death, but a post on bethlem's official blog about lillie briefly notes that he was "depressed, delusional and suicidal."

the post also notes, importantly, that his breakdown had nothing whatsoever to do with his antarctic experiences:

The content of his medical notes suggests that the state of mind that brought him to hospital was entirely unrelated to his experiences of 1910-1913. Indeed, they report that “on the whole he felt better during this time”. 

OK, let's end on a nice note. here's a picture of him having a nice time at silas's wedding (i think) with his best friends. RIP lillie, i hope your next life is going well somewhere out there right now 🥲💓

(also another good writeup on lillie with some lovely art can be found on @worstjourney's patreon here!)