Commander Joseph Stenhouse

Royal Navy commander

Commander Joseph Russell Stenhouse, DSOOBEDSCRDRNR (1887–1941) was a Scottish-born seaman, Royal Navy Officer and Antarctic navigator, who commanded the expedition vessel SY Aurora during her 283-day drift in the ice while on service with the Ross Sea Party component of Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1914-17. After Aurora's escape from the ice he brought her safely to New Zealand, but was thereafter replaced as the vessel's commander. He later served with distinction in the Royal Navy during both World Wars.

He was born in Dumbarton, Scotland, into a prosperous shipbuilding family, and was educated in England at Barrow Grammar School. After a short spell as a junior clerk with Lloyd's Register of Shipping, he served a Merchant Officer's apprenticeship on tall ships rounding Cape Horn. He then joined the British India Steam Navigation Company before receiving a last-minute appointment as First Officer on the Aurora, which was then in Australia awaiting refit. Receiving a commission as a sub-lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve on 1 August 1914, Stenhouse sailed for Australia aboard SS Ionic on 18 September.