Edward Beauclerk Maurice

Edward Beauclerk Maurice, who was born in 1913, travelled to the Arctic at the age of sixteen, where he worked at a number of trading posts on behalf of the Hudson’s Bay Company. In 1935 he left Baffin Island, returning to England for a year before the lure of the Arctic pulled him back. He managed posts in northern Quebec and Southampton Island before leaving the Arctic for good in 1939. Maurice then joined his family in New Zealand and served in the navy during World War II.

After the war, he returned to his native England and became a bookseller, rarely travelling again. He died in 2003 at the age of ninety, as The Last Gentleman Adventurer, his only book, was being readied for publication. It was published in 2005 to critical success.