Invernairn , Lady , Elspeth , fl 1902-1952 , nee Tullis

Lady Invernairn, nee Elspeth Tullis, married William (later Sir William) Beardmore (1856-1936), Chairman and Managing Director of William Beardmore and Co., Engineers and Shipbuilders, in 1902. He was created Baron Invernairn of Strathnairn in 1921. They both met Ernest (later Sir Ernest) Shackleton (1874-1922) in Edinburgh in 1905, not long after the latter's return from the Antarctic where he had taken part as a junior officer in the British National Antarctic Expedition, 1901 to 1904. In 1906 Shackleton entered Beardmore's employment at Parkhead, Glasgow. With Mrs Beardmore's encouragement, he planned his own British Antarctic Expedition in the NIMROD in 1907. Shackleton went south again in the ENDURANCE as leader of the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914 to 1917. See H.R. Mill, The Life of Sir Ernest Shackleton (London, 1923) and Margery and James Fisher, Shackleton(London, 1957).