Eric Gallery

Eric Liddell celebrating his Olympic win at Edinburgh Univer

Eric Liddell, the 400m gold medallist at the 1924 Paris Olympic Games, crowned and chaired at Edinburgh University where he had studied science. Wearing a wreath of olive leaves, he is carried by fellow graduates on a chair to St. Giles Cathedral where the graduation service was held. Answering the demand for a speech, Mr Liddell said, Over the entrance to the University of Pennsylvania there are these words: In the dust of defeat as well as in the laurel of victory there is glory to be found if one has done his best.'" Eric Liddell (1902 - 1945), was a Scottish athlete, rugby union international and missionary, Olympic gold medal winner in the 400m at the 1924 Paris Olympic Games and subject of the Oscar-winning 1981 film, Chariots of Fire. Date: 1924

© Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans

Two Wedgwood Mugs Designed by Eric Ravilious, 1944. Creator: Unknown

Two Wedgwood Mugs Designed by Eric Ravilious, 1944. Wedgwood Commemorations mug - Etruria 1730: Barlaston 1940; Edward VIII Coronation mug dated 1937'. The Etruria Works ceramics factory at Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, was opened by Josiah Wedgwood in 1769. Production was moved to a modern purpose-built factory in a rural setting at nearby Barlaston, built between 1938 and 1940. King Edward VIII ruled from 20 January 1936 until his abdication on 11 December of the same year. His coronation had been due to take place at Westminster Abbey on 12 May 1937. When he abdicated, preparations had already begun and souvenirs were on sale. From "English Pottery and China, by Cecilia Sempill. [Collins, London, 1944]

© The Print Collector/Heritage Images

A Group of the Shore Party at the Winter Quarters, c1908, (1909)

A Group of the Shore Party at the Winter Quarters. [Standing (from left): Joyce, Day, Wild, Adams, Brocklehurst, Shackleton, Marshall, David, Armitage, Marston. Sitting: Priestley, Murray, Roberts], c1908, (1909). Anglo-Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton (1874-1922) made three expeditions to the Antarctic. During the second expedition, 1907-1909, he and three companions established a new record, Farthest South latitude at 88°S, only 97 geographical miles (112 statute miles, or 180 km) from the South Pole, the largest advance to the pole in exploration history. Members of his team also climbed Mount Erebus, the most active volcano in the Antarctic. Shackleton was knighted by King Edward VII for these achievements. He died during his third and last oceanographic and sub-antarctic expedition, aged 47. Illustration from The Heart of the Antarctic, Vol. I, by E. H. Shackleton, C.V.O. [William Heinemann, London, 1909]

© The Print Collector / Heritage-Images