Between 1750 and 1920 around 18,000 people went to Antarctica and the sub Antarctic islands. Despite this, Antarctic historians have collectively, and almost without exception, deemed that the experiences of only around one hundred of these people were historically significant. Compounding the emphasis, about half or more of this latter group are minor actors, only present because of the support role they play. The end result of this reductio ad absurdum is that historians have placed several handfuls of people at the centre of ‘the Antarctic drama’. The vast majority of the people who went to Antarctica remain unknown to history, uncommented on by historians, and thoroughly neglected in Antarctic historiography. One of the central concerns of this book is to rectify that absence by examining the history of Antarctic exploration from the point of view of the workers who formed a large proportion of the anonymous 18,000. They were, to use an Antarctic analogy, the krill in the food chain of Antarctic discovery, the biotic base that sustained those higher up the pyramid of Antarctic exploration.

That the working class has remained largely invisible in Antarctic history can be attributed to several interlocking factors. The majority of the records from which Antarctic history has been written articulate the perspective of the Antarctic elite classes – leaders of expeditions, ships' captains, officers, scientists and artists.