He was Third Officer on board the and was a popular and cheerful member of the crew. Frank Worsley refers to him as "a pirate to his fingertips". After "Endurance" was crushed in pack ice and the men set up for Elephant Island in the three lifeboats, he was part of Worsley's crew in the "Dudley Docker". Worsley mentions that matches had become such precious currency that Cheetham bought a single match from him for the price of a bottle of champagne, to be paid when Cheetham opened his pub in Hull after the war. Cheetham's death in 1918 meant the debt was never paid.