James, Reginald William

Reginald William James was born in London on 9 January 1891. He was educated at the Regent Street Polytechnic and read physics at St John's College, Cambridge. After two years research studentship in the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge, he joined the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition [Weddell Sea party], 1914-1916 (leader Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton) as physicist.

After Endurance was lost, James played an important part in the saving of the expedition members by determining the longitude of the floe on which they were drifting when the ship's chronometers had become unreliable.

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