“Sir Daniel was the grandson of the other more illustrious Sir Daniel Gooch (1816-1889), the great railway engineer of some considerable genius who designed over 60 different classes of steam locomotives, and was responsible for laying the first ever Trans-Atlantic telegraph cable between Great Britain and America.
Gooch left the Expedition at South Georgia on Thursday 3rd December 1914. His home, Hylands House, had been requisitioned as a temporary war hospital and returned home to England to help with the supervision of its conversion. He funded the medical equipment himself, and the 190 bed hospital between 14th August 1914 and early 1919, treated over 1500 war wounded patients. Shackleton wrote ‘We all regretted losing his cheery presence when we headed for the South.’
Gooch was drafted in as a last minute substitute. Gooch’s qualifications for the job was that he was an expert breeder of Greyhounds and for years had followed the hunt. He sailed with the dogs on the La Negra from Liverpool on Monday 26th October 1914 bound for Buenos Aires, where he signed on board the Endurance as an able seaman.”
Shackleton. 