Robert Falcon Scott Robert Falcon Scott, known as Captain Scott or Scott of the Antarctic, was a British polar explorer. He joined the Royal Navy in 1882. Although he had no previous experience of polar research, in 1900 he became the leader of the British Antarctic Expedition. This expedition, known as the Discovery Expedition lasted from 1901 to 1904. Among other important things it determined the nature and size of the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica.
The aim of Scott’s second expedition in 1910-12 was to reach the South Pole. Departing from Cardiff, Wales, on the ship Terra Nova, the expedition reached the Antarctic coast in 1911. There Scott learned that the Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen, had already left for the Pole. So Scott’s chance to reach the South Pole before R. Amundsen was poor.
Equipped with motor tractors, ponies and dogs, Scott and 11 members of his team set off for the Pole on 24 October, 1911. Unfortunately, the motor tractors rapidly broke down and their ponies were unsuitable for Antarctic conditions. Very soon, six members of the team were sent back. The five explorers continued their dangerous journey across the snowy desert. On 16 January, they saw a black marker flag left by the Norwegian expedition, and two days later the party reached the South Pole itself, where the Norwegians had built a snow marker. Amundsen had reached the South Pole more than a month earlier, on 14 December 1911. Scott was greatly disappointed after the exhausting 81-day journey and recorded in his diary, "This is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have reached it without the reward of priority."
However, the 800 mile return journey was even more terrible. Two members fell ill and died, and the remaining explorers were frozen inside their tent in a terrible nine-day snowstorm. The last entry in Scott's diary was made on 29 March.
Eight months later a search party, led by Dr Atkinson, discovered the tent and the bodies of the explorers, along with the diaries and last letters of Scott. Scott had written a message explaining the reasons for the failure. The search party buried the brave explorers and built a snow memorial on their grave. Later, another memorial was put up at Observation Hill, at Hut Point (Antarctica) with the words ‘to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield.’
The news about the death of the Polar team reached Britain in February 1913. Within days, Scott became a national icon. A memorial service was held in St Paul’s Cathedral. A campaign was launched to raise a memorial fund to continue the scientific work Scott had carried out. The Scott Polar Research Institute was founded. In the several years following the disaster, more than 30 monuments and memorials were set up in Britain alone. |