̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - Heather Lane

“Albatross!” ̽��ֱ��legendary giant seabird

amb206 — Mon, 01 Jun 2015 10:08:25 +0000

Scroll to the end of the article to listen to the podcast.

In June 1910 Dr Edward Wilson set sail from Cardiff to Antarctica on board the Terra Nova as the Chief of the Scientific Staff on the British Antarctic Expedition led by Captain Scott. On 1 November the following year a group from the Terra Nova set out from Cape Evans across the ice with the intention of reaching the South Pole. ̽��ֱ��venture ended in tragedy. ̽��ֱ��members of the British expedition perished on their return from the pole having discovered that the Norwegians had got there first.

Wilson was a talented artist as well as a doctor. He began drawing as a child and throughout his life he made meticulous sketches and watercolours of the natural world.

After his death, his final sketchbook was retrieved from the tent where he and his companions spent their last days. His watercolours were returned from the Cape Evans hut where they had been produced.

Artworks made by Wilson on both the Discovery Expedition of 1901 and the Terra Nova Expedition are testimony to the spirit of discovery and the splendour of the Antarctic.

̽��ֱ��Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) is fortunate in holding around 1,900 of Wilson’s drawings and sketches, the majority of them given to SPRI by his wife Oriana. Nineteen of these artworks depict the albatross – several species of which Wilson shows both in close-up studies and soaring above the ocean.

Mrs Heather Lane, former Keeper of the Polar Museum, says: "Wilson is undoubtedly one of the greatest artists of the heroic age of polar exploration. He was one of Scott’s closest friends and on expeditions the person to whom others looked for stability.

"As an artist he was self-taught yet he captured with stunning accuracy both the anatomical structure and the fragile beauty of living things. He was particularly fascinated by birds."

̽��ֱ��wandering albatross has the largest wingspan (up to 12 foot) of any bird. Its flight is so efficient that it expends as little energy soaring on currents of air (a type of flight known as 'dynamic soaring') as it does sitting on its nest. In all, there are 22 species of albatross, most of them living in the southern oceans. ̽��ֱ��majority are under threat, chiefly from longline fishing. Attracted by the bait, the birds become entangled by the hooks and drown. Estimates put the annual death toll at 100,000 birds.

PhD candidate Tommy Clay (Department of Zoology) is contributing to a British Antarctic Survey (BAS) programme that is creating a detailed picture of their migratory movements. ̽��ֱ��research is made possible by lightweight battery-powered devices capable of tracking the birds’ movements over multiple years.

Albatrosses pair for life: Wanderers raise at most one chick every two years. They spend a whole year incubating their one egg and looking after the chick. Once the chick is independent, its parents enjoy a recovery period before they breed again, returning to the same breeding spots on remote islands in the southern ocean.

"Until relatively recently, very little has been known about the pattern of albatross movements across their lifespans, which can be more than 60 years. We’re beginning to build up a picture of what individual birds do and why they do it. We now know that in the inter-breeding period, the birds cover huge distances. One Grey-headed albatross, for example, circumnavigated the southern hemisphere in just 46 days," says Clay.

"Albatrosses are regarded as sentinel species for the health of the marine environment. Albatrosses are scavengers – they follow ships and eat the debris thrown into the water. In the North Pacific, dead birds are found with plastic in their stomachs, showing just how widespread – and destructive – is our impact on the oceans."

̽��ֱ��long association between the albatross and the seafarer was cemented in 1798 with the publication of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s epic Rime of the Ancient Mariner. In the poem, which was dismissed by early critics as an extravagant cock-and-bull story, the eponymous mariner shoots an albatross in a seemingly motiveless act of cruelty.

When the ship is becalmed (Day after day, day after day,/We stuck, nor breath nor motion; /As idle as a painted ship/ Upon a painted ocean), the dead albatross is hung around the mariner’s neck by his shipmates.

̽��ֱ��poem was famously illustrated by Gustav Doré in the 1870s and became one of the most quoted ballads in the English language. Images of the crew dying of thirst out at sea (Water, water, every where,/And all the boards did shrink;/ Water, water, every where,/ Nor any drop to drink) and the dead bird hanging around a man’s neck became embedded in the public imagination.

In the 1930s, albatross entered the Oxford English Dictionary as a word to describe an unshakeable burden.

“ ̽��ֱ��indeterminacy of the mariner’s crime makes the story compelling: we don’t know what makes him pick up his crossbow and shoot a bird that the crew has befriended. Some scholars have read the poem as a Christian narrative in which evil is punished by God. Others, more recently, have argued for an environmental context in which mankind is punished for an attack on the natural world,” says Professor Heather Glen of the Faculty of English.

“Or possibly – and this is in keeping with the poem’s deliberately archaic ballad form – Coleridge is suggesting that the shooting of the albatross is a violation of a much more ancient tradition of welcome to the stranger. In the note with which he headed the poem in 1800 edition of Lyrical Ballads, Coleridge announces that it will portray ‘how the Ancient Mariner cruelly, and in contempt of the laws of hospitality, killed a sea-bird; and how he was followed by many and strange judgements’.”

For a short time, Coleridge was a student at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he described himself as ‘a library-cormorant’ greedily devouring as many books as he could. ̽��ֱ��device of the albatross was suggested to him by his close friend William Wordsworth during a walking holiday. Wordsworth had been reading George Shelvocke’s Voyage Round the World (1726) in which an albatross is shot. Both Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library and SPRI have early editions of the book.

Next in the Cambridge Animal Alphabet: B is for an animal that roamed Cambridgeshire 120,000 years ago, provided sport for the inhabitants of Madingley Hall, and became a friend to one eccentric poet at Trinity College.

Inset images: Diomedea melanophrys. Discovery 1901. Black browed albatross, by Edward Adrian Wilson. (Scott Polar Research Institute); Wandering albatross. (Robert Paterson, British Antarctic Survey); Gustav Doré's illustration from Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. (Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Library).

The Cambridge Animal Alphabet series celebrates Cambridge's connections with animals through literature, art, science and society. Here, A is for Albatross – in sketches retrieved from Antarctica, research into migratory patterns, and Coleridge’s famous ballad.

In the inter-breeding period, the birds cover huge distances. One Grey-headed albatross circumnavigated the southern hemisphere in just 46 days

Tommy Clay

A is for Albatross: sketches by Edward Wilson

Scott Polar Research Institute

Head of an albatross caught on Sep. 22 1901 by Edward Adrian Wilson

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. For image use please see separate credits above.

Yes

Last letter of Captain Scott finally revealed in full - 101 years on

sjr81 — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 00:01:01 +0000

Written by Scott from his final Antarctic camp at the very end of his life in March 1912, the letter to Admiral Sir Francis Bridgeman speaks poignantly of Scott’s anxiety for his family and his hope that he and companions have set a good example. ̽��ֱ��acquisition of this letter is of considerable importance for the United Kingdom’s polar heritage.

It is being revealed to the public 101 years to the day since Captain Scott’s final diary entry (March 29, 1912).

Though previously quoted in part, its full contents have remained unknown to the wider public until today, having passed into private hands following delivery to Bridgeman

It will now take its place at SPRI alongside the other ‘last letters’ written to his widow Kathleen Scott, Mrs Oriana Wilson, Mrs Emily Bowers, Sir Reginald Smith and George Egerton. ̽��ֱ��only other last letter in private hands, written to Edgar Speyer, was sold last year at auction for £165,000.

Scott is known to have written to his friend, the author JM Barrie, but the whereabouts of this letter are completely unknown.

SPRI Archivist, Naomi Boneham said: “It seems very fitting that we should be able to announce this major acquisition exactly one hundred and one years after Scott’s final diary entry. We intend to put the letter on public display in the Polar Museum as soon as it has been conserved.”

Admiral Sir Francis Charles Bridgeman Bridgeman GCB, GCVO (7 December 1848 – 17 February 1929) was a Royal Navy officer. As a Captain he commanded a battleship and then an armoured cruiser and then, after serving as second-in-command of three different fleets, he twice undertook tours as Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleet with a stint as Second Sea Lord in between those tours. He became First Sea Lord in November 1911. He had been Scott's Commanding Officer.

Thanks to donations from the V&A Purchase Grant Fund, the John R Murray Trust, the Friends of the National Libraries and Dr Richard Dehmel, the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge has been able to make the purchase for the sum of £78,816. ̽��ֱ��letter was sold by Lord and Lady Graham, descendants of Sir Francis Bridgeman.

̽��ֱ��Institute was delighted to be offered the opportunity to acquire Scott’s letter to Bridgeman, along with associated correspondence, as the majority of the surviving letters are already held in the collections of the Scott Polar Research Institute and are publicly accessible via its Polar Museum. They are among the museum’s greatest treasures.

SPRI’s Librarian & Keeper of Collections, Heather Lane, said: “Without the generous support of these organisations and individuals we would not have been able to secure this important manuscript. It is extraordinary to think that the letter will now be reunited with the others written by Scott in the Antarctic over 100 years ago.”

̽��ֱ��final letters written in March 1912 from the Antarctic to family and friends by Captain Scott and his companions, Dr Edward Wilson, Captain Lawrence Oates and Lt. Henry Robertson Bowers, are of major significance to the national heritage. No letters are known to survive from P.O. Edgar Evans, the fifth member of the Polar Party. In the case of Scott, this letter clearly expresses his feelings as he lay dying and is a testament to the qualities of endurance which propelled Scott to the status of a national hero.

We know much about the expedition from Scott’s personal journal, which was bequeathed to the nation and is held by the British Library, which kindly lent the final volume for a temporary exhibition at the Polar Museum in 2012 to mark the centenary of Scott’s achievement of the South Pole. As the extract below illustrates, the Bridgeman letter is an important addition to the story as it conveys Scott’s feelings at the very end of his life. It has never been reproduced in full in any of the editions of Scott’s writings.

Its purchase enables this letter to be reunited with the others written from the tent on the Great Ice Barrier, already in the Institute’s care, and with the photographs, sledging journals and personal diaries of Scott and his team, which form the most comprehensive record of the expedition held anywhere.

SPRI is the oldest international centre for polar research and is world-renowned for research and reference in a variety of fields relating to the environment, history, science and social science of the polar regions. ̽��ֱ��Institute was founded in Cambridge, as a memorial Scott and his four companions, who died returning from the South Pole in 1912. As well as research programmes, the Institute provides access to its library, archives and museum for the general public and has a strong educational outreach programme on the Arctic and Antarctic, ice and environmental change. It houses the largest public collection of historic archives, photographs and artefacts from polar expeditions in the United Kingdom.

Text of the letter:

To Sir Francis Bridgeman

My Dear Sir Francis
I fear we have shipped up – a close shave. I am writing a few letters which I hope will be delivered some day. I want to thank you for the friendship you gave me of late years, and to tell you how extraordinarily pleasant I found it to serve under you. I want to tell you that I was not too old for this job. It was the younger men that went under first. Finally I want you to secure a competence for my widow and boy. I leave them very ill provided for, but feel that the country ought not to neglect them. After all we are setting a good example to our countrymen, if not by getting into a tight place, by facing it like men when we were there. We could have come through had we neglected the sick.

Good-bye and good-bye to dear Lady Bridgeman

Yours ever

R. Scott

Excuse writing – it is -40, and has been for nigh a month

A letter written by the dying Captain Scott - one of only two remaining in private hands - can be revealed in full for the first time after being acquired by the Scott Polar Research Institute at the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

I want to tell you that I was not too old for this job. It was the younger men that went under first.

Captain Scott

Scott Polar Research Institute

Captain Scott writing in his Antarctic hut, before the expedition that cost him his life

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.

Yes

Q&A with Scott Centenary Tour composer

sjr81 — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:42:49 +0000

Here, in a revealing interview, McDowall explains how the tragic, but deeply personal human story found in Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s last letter to his wife Kathleen became the starting point for a major new commission.

What made you want to take on this commission?

CM: About two years ago Heather Lane, Librarian and Keeper of Collections at the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, invited me to visit the Institute and Museum. At the time the Museum was undergoing an extensive renovation programme. It really was a fascinating and atmospheric time to visit it because there was so much building work going on – bare wires coming out of the walls, a patina of dust everywhere and the outline of where the display cases would eventually be; intriguing stuff. And in the basement I saw artefacts which were being stored there out of the dust, just waiting to be brought back into the light once all was finished.

I remember one dark shadowy room especially, where I saw scientific equipment, snow shoes, goggles, bulky clothing, cameras in leather cases, huge wooden sledges – but what struck me then, seeing so much, was how Scott and his team hauled such substantial, heavy equipment across those vast icy distances in the Antarctic. I found the scale of their human endeavour quite breathtaking. Later that same day Heather introduced me to the diaries and letters found in Scott’s tent and, most poignantly of all, Scott’s tender letter addressed ‘To my widow’ written in pencil, made faint by time and ice. This acutely personal but stoical document lies at the heart of Seventy degrees below zero; it is a deeply moving testament.

How did the Scott material inspire the music and poetry? Was there a particular letter or diary entry that proved particularly inspirational?

CM: Well, as a starting point, the title comes directly from Scott’s last letter in which he writes so affectionately to his wife, ‘Dear, it is not easy to write because of the cold – 70 degrees below zero.’ Just thinking of what that means in terms of what we experience in our winters today seems, to me, unimaginable. ̽��ֱ��scientific entries and the descriptions of the encounters on the expedition in the Journals gave me a way into this beautiful but ferociously dangerous polar world. While I was writing the work it felt as though I was living in that icy place. (Perhaps it helped that my central heating wasn’t working properly at the time.) Every time I read through Scott’s ‘final’ letter it moves me deeply - those words are so alive, so ‘present’, so heartbreaking.

Can you tell us about the process of composing a new piece?

CM: I had read and already worked with some of Seán Street’s poetry and knew of his work as a leading broadcaster so I felt that he would know instinctively what it was I wanted to do, to bring something different to this Antarctic commission. It felt to me as though we were looking from our 2012 vantage point, through a telescope, back down a century to all the scientific work of those extraordinary men, Captain Scott and his expeditionary force, who kept meticulous records of scientific data, laying down the foundations for today’s research and exploration. And with that connection in mind I wanted to join Scott’s text (his letter to his wife and some of the entries from the Journals) with poetry of today, to fuse the past with the present. I asked Seán if he would write two poems; one which would be the centre of the whole work, something which could set the past in context (which he has done with his exquisite, delicate poem called ̽��ֱ��Ice Tree) and a second poem to incorporate something from Scott’s Journals, something which could bring a suggestion of scientific activity and a sense of the journey to the Pole, all of which he has done beautifully in a poem called We measure.

Was this way of composing unique for you or do you often use other sources of information for inspiration?

CM: There are two ways, I suppose of working with text; to use existing words or to collaborate in finding something new. In the case of Seventy Degrees Below Zero I used both. Working on Seventy Degrees Below Zero with Seán Street offered an opportunity for a lively exchange of ideas, for discussion and a re-imagining of a small part of this polar world in another time. I love this kind of collaboration – I have worked in this way with other poets and librettists before, Christie Dickason, Simon Mundy and the Scottish poet, Alan Spence. It’s such a rewarding creative process in this solitary business.

What you would like audiences to take away from your work?

CM: What I found interesting when writing the work, and I hadn’t anticipated this, was how strongly I felt where it should appear in the programme of the concert. It’s not always easy to imagine how a new work will turn out but I realized, as I was writing the last movement, that I really wanted the listener to have as much space as possible in which to hear the tenor sing Scott’s final words. So no music to follow on immediately – just the interval. I hope these potent words will have impact and speak for themselves. They are so powerful in their unaffected simplicity and I didn’t want to get in the way. Happily the City of London Sinfonia had decided on this placing!”

Cecilia McDowall’s Cantata Seventy Degrees Below Zero for voices and orchestra receives its world premiere at Symphony Hall, Birmingham, on Friday 3 February. ̽��ֱ��second half of the programme will include the iconic music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, whose film score for the 1947 film Scott of the Antarctic (later turned into his Symphony No. 7) depicts the vast wilderness and beauty of the Antarctic. SPRI will provide a stunning selection of iconic images by the expedition photographer Herbert Ponting, now digitally restored in high definition, to be projected during the performance.

CONCERT PROGRAMME

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Excerpts from Scott of the Antarctic film score (with readings from diaries and letters)

CECILIA McDOWALL Cantata for orchestra and voices: Seventy Degrees Below Zero (world première)

VAUGHAN WILLIAMS Symphony No 7 (Antarctica) projecting original photographs taken during the Expedition

Stephen Layton, conductor • Hugh Bonneville, narrator • ̽��ֱ��Holst Singers

̽��ֱ��tour

CLS will tour 5 regional venues in the UK:

Symphony Hall, Birmingham - 3 February 2012
Corn Exchange, Cambridge - 4 February 2012
St David’s Hall, Cardiff - 7 February 2012
Town Hall, Cheltenham - 8 February 2012
Cadogan Hall, London - 3 March 2012

̽��ֱ��Scott Polar Research Institute is proud to have provided the inspiration for a major new composition by leading British composer, Cecilia McDowall.

Every time I read through Scott’s ‘final’ letter it moves me deeply - those words are so alive, so ‘present’, so heartbreaking.

Cecilia McDowall

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

Yes

Celebrating the centenary of Captain Scott reaching the South Pole

bjb42 — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:20:28 +0000

Descendants, politicians, historians and scientists have gathered in Cambridge for a symposium to consider Scott’s scientific, historical and cultural legacy.

̽��ֱ��Institute’s Director, Professor Julian Dowdeswell said, “ ̽��ֱ��centenary gives us the perfect opportunity to reflect on Scott’s achievements and his legacy and to celebrate a century of Antarctic science. ̽��ֱ��Institute’s education and outreach activities are designed to encourage the next generation of young people to take up careers in polar science and to be inspired by Scott’s example.” ̽��ֱ��conference will be followed by a gala dinner to be attended by HRH ̽��ֱ��Duke of Edinburgh and HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco.

In addition, the photographs taken by Captain Scott on his final expedition to the South Pole will be saved for the nation by SPRI, thanks to the support of the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) enabling their purchase.

This remarkable collection consists of 109 photographs, and gives a view of the Antarctic as seen through Captain Scott’s eyes as he documented the first part of his epic journey to the South Pole. Subjects include his companions, the ponies and sledges, the scientific work they were undertaking and the breathtaking Antarctic landscape.

̽��ֱ��photographs themselves were printed in the Antarctic by members of Scott’s team as they waited for his return from the Pole, and for most of the past 70 years were considered lost.

̽��ֱ��purchase of the photographs by SPRI will allow the images to be reunited with Scott's camera, which was given to the Institute by the late Lady Philippa Scott in 2008. Once they have been fully conserved, the photographs will be digitised and made available online.

“Scott’s photographs bring to life, in vivid detail, his party’s sledging journey into the interior of Antarctica,” says Dowdeswell. "From men and ponies struggling through deep snow, to panoramas of the Transantarctic Mountains, the images are very powerful. They are a superb complement to the Antarctic photographs of Herbert Ponting, which the Heritage Lottery Fund also helped us to acquire.”

Robyn Llewellyn, Head of Heritage Lottery Fund East of England, said “This stunning collection provides a fascinating insight into Captain Scott’s ill-fated Antarctic expedition. Although he was never to return, the research and records that were undertaken by his team are of historic and scientific importance. We at the Heritage Lottery Fund are delighted to play a part in bringing these photographs to the Scott Polar Research Institute where they will be conserved and made available for everyone to see.”

̽��ֱ��British Antarctic (Terra Nova) Expedition was led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott RN with the twin objectives of being the first to reach the geographical South Pole and to undertake scientific research on the Antarctic environment.

Scott and four companions attained the pole on 17 January 1912, to find that a Norwegian team led by Roald Amundsen had preceded them by 34 days. Scott's entire party died on the return journey from the pole. Some of their bodies, journals, and personal effects were discovered by a search party eight months later.

Captain Scott’s photographs were developed in the Antarctic by the geologist, Frank Debenham, who later became the founding Director of SPRI. ̽��ֱ��images were returned to the UK by members of the expedition in 1913 and it was intended that they be used to illustrate books, reports and lectures; however, difficulties with establishing copyright meant that only a handful were ever used.

̽��ֱ��First World War intervened and confusion over ownership was never resolved, any remaining negatives were lost and the prints passed to Herbert Ponting. On Ponting's death in 1935 the prints were sold to the photographic agency Popperfoto, who in turn sold them at auction in New York in 2001 and they have remained in private hands ever since.

As part of the centenary celebrations, SPRI has put on display a special exhibition ‘These Rough Notes: Capt. Scott’s Last Expedition’ which includes manuscript material from the planning of the expedition to the diaries of the men on the search party who discovered the fate of Scott and his men.

Tuesday 17 January 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the first British team reaching the South Pole. Founded as a memorial to Captain Scott and his four companions, the Scott Polar Research Institute (SPRI) is marking the occasion with two days of celebrations.

̽��ֱ��Institute’s education and outreach activities are designed to encourage the next generation of young people to take up careers in polar science and to be inspired by Scott’s example.

Professor Julian Dowdeswell

Scott Polar Research Institute - Centenary of Scott reaching the Pole

Scott Polar Research Institute

Foundering in soft snow: Bowers' sledge team; Wilson pushing; Oates and PO Evans repairing, Beardmore Glacier, 13 December 1911

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.

Yes

‘These rough notes and our dead bodies…’

ns480 — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 10:01:06 +0000

These rough notes: Capt. Scott’s last expedition (7th December – 5th May) will put on show papers from the British Antarctic Expedition 1910–13 held in the Polar Museum’s archive collection, much of which has never been on public display before.

̽��ֱ��exhibition tells the full story of the fateful Terra Nova expedition, not just through the famous journals and letters of Scott, Bowers, Evans, Oates and Wilson, who perished on their way back from the Pole, but through other members of the ship’s crew and shore party.

It not only highlights the ‘Worst Journey in the World’ – the winter journey to collect eggs from the Emperor penguin colony at Cape Crozier – but also the largely forgotten ‘Northern Party’ – six men stranded for 21 months when the ship could not reach them through the heavy pack ice and forced to shelter from the brutal Antarctic winter in a cave dug into the snow.

Curator Kay Smith said: “This really is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see these manuscripts exhibited together. Some of them are so fragile and valuable that they probably won’t go on display again for another hundred years. This is a wonderful occasion to have much more of our handwritten material on show.

“There are so many elements to the Terra Nova story and we’re bringing back to life some of the forgotten voices. We’re not just talking about the ‘race to the pole’ here, we’re talking about an entire crew of men, each telling their own story in their own way – and perhaps a different story from those you’re already familiar with.”

Archivist Naomi Boneham said: “It’s a chance to bring together many different voices from the expedition - from the ship’s company to the officers and scientists. These papers are never normally on display; the only way of seeing these documents until now has been to undertake a research project. By doing this we are able to let people see how the men viewed their experiences and how they recorded them.

“For the first sledge journey carried out in the Antarctic winter we have the shaky handwriting of Apsley Cherry-Garrard, who had to abandon his diary as the conditions were so bad. We also have Birdie Bowers retelling the story in a letter to his mother and Dr Wilson’s official report, right through to Cherry’s celebrated account, ‘ ̽��ֱ��Worst Journey in the World’ where his manuscript draft differs from what finally went into print.

“We know the story – we know how it ends – but they didn’t, so from the storms that beset the ship through to the party in the hut and on to the march to the South Pole we can go with them on their journey.”

Among items on display is the very rarely seen second journal of Henry Robertson (Birdie) Bowers who accompanied Scott to the Pole and died alongside him on the return journey. This fragile volume has been repaired especially for the exhibition and the full text will be published for the first time, along with Bowers’ letters home, in a limited edition in mid-December.

Keeper of Collections, Heather Lane said, “What has really struck me is how powerful much of the writing is. ̽��ֱ��manuscripts provide such a vivid record of the daily life of the expedition. I hope that people who come along will gain a very clear picture of the range of scientific and mapping work which Scott’s men were able to achieve, quite apart from the journey to the Pole.”

Other previously unseen items include also a miniature sledge made by Edward Evans, the sketchbook of Edward Wilson (Chief of the Scientific Staff) – including his drawings of Amundsen’s tent, and a newspaper, produced by members of the trapped northern party who had – rather improbably – taken a typewriter along with them. ̽��ֱ��hand-produced newspaper, which contains humorous articles, poems and sketches, is evocatively blackened by the soot from their blubber stove – the trapped men’s main means of survival as they sat out the worst of the winter before travelling the 230 miles on foot back to Cape Evans.

Perhaps one of the most valuable exhibits on display is the journal of Captain Scott, on loan from the British Library by permission of the Scott family. It is reunited for the first time with his heart-breaking final letters to his widow.

̽��ֱ��title of the exhibition comes directly from Captain Scott’s message to the public written at the end of his journal, just prior to his death. Dated March 29, 1912, it reads: “Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance, and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale, but surely, surely, a great rich country like ours will see that those who are dependent on us are properly provided for."

Although much of the display focuses on the written words of the Terra Nova crew, there will also be some fascinating and unusual exhibits on display alongside the letters, manuscripts, illustrated newspapers, posters and pamphlets.

They include some of the Christmas decorations made by members of the 33-strong shore party, as well as medals, sledge flags and matchboxes belonging to crew members. Some of Wilson’s watercolours will also be on display as well as a penguin-shaped menu made for those spending Midwinter Day at Cape Evans.

Expedition members featured in the exhibition include: Captain Scott, Dr Wilson, Lieutenant Bowers, Captain Oates, Petty Officer Edgar Evans, Apsley Cherry-Garrard (author of the Worst Journey in the World), Lieutenant Edward Evans (second in command of the expedition), Victor Campbell (leader of the Northern Party), Thomas Griffith Taylor (Geologist), Charles Wright (Physicist), William Lashly (Chief Stoker), Thomas Williamson (Petty Officer), Patrick Keohane (Petty Officer), Frank Browning (Petty Officer).

These rough notes: Captain Scott’s last expedition runs from 7 December 2011 – 5 May 2012. Visit http://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/museum/exhibitions/ for further information.

̽��ֱ��story of the Terra Nova expedition, explored through the letters, diaries and photographs of its members, is to be told during a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition at Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Polar Museum.

We’re not just talking about the ‘race to the pole’ here, we’re talking about an entire crew of men, each telling their own story in their own way.

Kay Smith

Scott Polar Research institute, Cambridge.

Scott writing in his hut during the fateful Terra Nova expedition.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.

Yes

Final chance to vote for Polar Museum

sjr81 — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 14:47:50 +0000

̽��ֱ��vote closes at 5pm on 7 June 2011, representing the last chance for the public to show their support for the Polar Museum’s bid to win the 2011 Art Fund Prize.

An eighteen-month refurbishment has transformed an almost unknown collection into a world-class museum with a programme of new activities and events. Refitting the museum and archive stores provides better access for researchers to the outstanding objects and manuscripts in one of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge’s smallest museums.

Staff at the Scott Polar Research Institute in the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge are delighted to have been shortlisted for the £100,000 accolade celebrating the ‘museum of the year’. ̽��ֱ��winner will be announced on 15 June 2011 at an awards ceremony hosted at Tate Britain.

Heather Lane, Librarian and Keeper of Collections at the Scott Polar Research Institute said: “We are delighted to have made it to the shortlist. It’s fantastic recognition for all the hard work that the very small team here have put in. Essentially, this is our vision of how to present polar history and science. It’s gratifying to know that other people find what we have done is appealing and enables them to further their knowledge of the subject. Winning the Prize would enable us to plan further ahead and build on what we have already achieved.”

Winning the £100,000 Prize would make an enormous difference to the Polar Museum, funding Education and Outreach work for the next three years. It would significantly increase the budget the museum could make available for education activities, helping to develop programmes for an even wider audience. ̽��ֱ��Prize would be used to expand resources for schools and communities, not only in the galleries, but also developing web-based projects and making better use of new technology. Audience numbers have tripled to 45,000 visitors a year since the museum reopened in June 2010 after a £1.75 million refurbishment, funded in part by the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Polar history and science are a vital part of the UK’s cultural heritage and the stories of British exploration in the Arctic and Antarctic are a part of our shared national identity – the stories of Scott and Shackleton have been an inspiration for a century. ̽��ֱ��Polar Museum now enables visitors to learn why the Poles are significant in the global environment and shows how the science carried out on the early expeditions is fundamental to our understanding of the way in which the world’s climate is changing. Without those early records, SPRI’s scientists would not be able to produce such accurate models and forecasts today. With such interest in the environment, a visit to the Polar Museum is a great way to encourage the next generation of young scientists to get involved.

Time is running out in order to cast your vote and make the Polar Museum the Art Fund’s Museum of the Year for 2011.

Essentially, this is our vision of how to present polar history and science

Heather Lane

Sir Cam

Art Fund judges visit the Polar Museum

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.

Yes

Polar Museum short listed for £100,000 Art Fund Prize

sjr81 — Thu, 19 May 2011 20:00:29 +0000

Four museums across the UK have been short listed for the prestigious accolade out of a long list of ten. ̽��ֱ��single, £100,000 prize for the ‘Museum of the Year’ will be presented to the winning museum on 15 June.

̽��ֱ��Polar Museum, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, has been selected for Promoting Britain's Polar Heritage – a major renovation of galleries and stores at the UK's only museum dedicated to the Polar Regions, their exploration and science.

̽��ֱ��museum was established principally to preserve the collections relating to Polar exploration and – later – scientific research in the Polar Regions.

̽��ֱ��museum holds some 10,000 objects, over 100,000 images and the world’s largest polar archive, comprising well over one million documents. Key items include Captain Oates’ sleeping bag and the last letters from Captain Scott’s Polar party to their families and friends. ̽��ֱ��museum is run by a total of seven staff, assisted by 15 volunteers. ̽��ֱ��renovation project cost £1.75m, of which £994,500 came from the Heritage Lottery Fund. Remaining funds were raised from a range of charities, funding bodies and individual donors.

Heather Lane, Keeper of Collections at the Polar Museum, said: “We are absolutely delighted to have been short listed for the Art Fund Prize. This is a real tribute to the efforts of the very small team here, who have worked so hard to make the collections truly accessible. We have been particularly moved by the heartfelt comments from voters in the first round - it is fantastic to know that we have made such an impact in the short time that the museum has been open. We hope that everyone will support us again in the next round of the public vote.”

̽��ֱ��Polar Museum at Cambridge ̽��ֱ��'s Scott Polar Research Institute, has been short listed for the Art Fund Prize 2011 – the £100,000 prize for the ‘Museum of the Year’.

This is a real tribute to the efforts of the very small team here.

Heather Lane, SPRI

Sir Cam

Art Fund judges' visit to the Polar Museum

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.

Yes

Cast your vote for the Polar Museum

sjr81 — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 15:10:36 +0000

On the Bank Holiday weekend of 29 April – 2 May, the Polar Museum invites the public to celebrate ‘Love Your Museum Weekend’ as part of its bid to win the £100,000 Art Fund Prize.

As well as visiting the Museum on Saturday, members of the public are also encouraged to vote in the online poll run by the Arts Fund as the Prize judges look to narrow Those entering the poll (details below) have the chance to win an iPad.

̽��ֱ��Polar Museum, Cambridge is among ten institutions long listed for the prestigious accolade of ‘Museum of the Year’. It was selected for its development project, Promoting Britain's polar heritage: developing the Polar Museum at the Scott Polar Research Institute. Other contenders for the Prize include the British Museum, Mostyn in Wales and the Roman Baths Museum, Bath.

̽��ֱ��Polar Museum will be open on Saturday 30 April and will host a range of drop-in family-friendly activities. These include: try on polar clothing, draw a penguin to join the giant penguin huddle, make your own snowflake, find out about expedition newspapers and create your own polar adventure headline. There will also be a chance to look more closely at Inuit sculpture at 11am, 12pm and 2.30pm with the Keeper of Collections, Heather Lane. Visitors are also invited to make a penguin tag to saying why they love the Polar Museum.

Over the course of the weekend the museum will also be asking the public to comment online in support of its bid to win the £100,000 accolade.

Keeper of Collections, Heather Lane, said, "We hope that many new visitors will come to the Polar Museum as a result of the Love Your Museum event. ̽��ֱ��Art Fund Prize nomination has given us a wonderful boost and we want to encourage as many people as possible to vote for us in the online poll."

Love Your Museum Weekend also marks the last chance for the public to show their support for their favourite long listed museum before the judges meet to decide on the short list, which will be announced on 19 May.

On Saturday, 30 April, the public are also invited to participate in a Twitter competition in celebration of Love Your Museum Weekend. People are invited to tweet why they love museums by using the hash tag #ilovemuseums. In doing so they can enter a draw to win a free National Art Pass, giving a year’s free entry to over 200 charging museums and galleries and 50% off entry to major exhibitions across the UK. Tweets must be entered between 10am and 1pm on Saturday 30 April.

Free events and activities will be held at nine of the ten long listed museums and galleries.

Meanwhile, judge Jeremy Deller has created an audio diary series chronicling his experience as Art Fund Prize judge for BBC Radio 4’s Front Row. Jeremy took recording equipment with him on all of his visits to the long listed museums. ̽��ֱ��diaries will be broadcast on Radio 4 during the first half of May, prior to the shortlist announcement.

It’s time to show your love for the Polar Museum at Cambridge ̽��ֱ��’s Scott Polar Research Institute this weekend.

̽��ֱ��Art Fund Prize nomination has given us a wonderful boost and we want to encourage as many people as possible to vote for us in the online poll.

Heather Lane, SPRI

Sir Cam

Art Fund judges visit the Polar Museum

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. If you use this content on your site please link back to this page.

Yes