In May 1893 I was elected President of the Royal Geographical Society, and resolved that an Antarctic expedition should be despatched, preferably by Government, as the encouragement of maritime enterprise, especially in a school so favourable to the acquisition of valuable experience as the polar regions, has always been my special aim. I found that Dr Murray of the Challenger agreed with me that the expedition should be under naval control, and he consented to open the campaign by reading a paper at a meeting of the Royal Geographical Society on November 27th, 1893.
It was a great meeting, reminiscent of the splendid opening of the Arctic campaign by Sherard Osborn, and Sir John Murray’s address was eloquent and convincing. Apart from the main object, the duties of an expedition, as outlined by Dr Murray, would be:—
He added that observations such as the above were especially desirable “for the more definite determination of the distribution of the land and water of our planet, for the solution of many problems concerning the ice age, for the better determination of the internal constitution and superficial form of the earth, and for a more complete knowledge of the laws which govern the motions of the atmosphere and hydrosphere.”
The approval of the great meeting was unanimous Sir Joseph Hooker, the Duke of Argyll, and other eminent men of science and naval officers expressing themselves strongly in favour of the project. A dash to the Pole was not advocated, but rather a steady, continuous, and systematic exploration of the antarctic region.
Our efforts to induce the Government to undertake an expedition failed, and need not be dwelt upon here. The Admiralty, however, offered to lend instruments, and later, thanks to the exertions of Admiral Sir Anthony Hoskins, there was liberality in giving leave, on full pay, to officers and men.
Articles in magazines had to be published, lectures to be delivered, circulars to be sent out, and the desperately uphill work of raising funds for a private expedition undertaken. In December, 1895, I proposed that the expedition should be undertaken by the Royal Geographical Society. There was some opposition and delay, but at length, on April 12th, 1897, the R.G.S. Council agreed to subscribe and raise funds. As the Royal Society is the scientific adviser of the Government, that eminent body was asked to unite with the Royal Geographical Society, and its President and Council consented on February 24th, 1898. The Council of the Geographical Society consented to a grant of £5000 for the expedition, on June 20th of that year.
By that time I had collected only £14,000 when on March 24th, 1899, Mr Longstaff asked me if £25,000 would enable the expedition to start. I assured him that it would, on a small scale, and he at once sent a cheque. This was an example of princely munificence which entitles its generous donor to take rank with the merchant adventurers of the days of Elizabeth. For similar patriotic munificence Sir Felix Booth received a baronetcy; Oscar Dickson received a barony. Longstaff received the admiration and gratitude of his countrymen, and a very honourable niche in polar history. On June 22nd, 1899, the First Lord of the Treasury promised a grant, and the Treasury afterwards announced that this would amount to £40,000 on condition that an equal sum was raised privately. We then had only £37,000, but the R.G.S. Council at once granted an additional £3000 to make up the required sum.
I considered it necessary, as did Sir William White, that a wooden ship should be specially built for the service. In consultation with Captain Creak, R.N., C.B., Superintendent of compasses at the Admiralty, I found that he also thought it necessary from the point of view of magnetic observations. Sir William White advised me to secure the services of Mr W. C. Smith, C.B., of the Controller’s Department at the Admiralty, to prepare the designs and specifications. Mr Smith very kindly undertook the duty, with the permission of Admiral Sir Arthur Wilson, the Controller. A Ship Committee was appointed on April 10th, 1899, meeting first on the 26th203.
It was decided that the ship should be of wood, and that the lines of the old Discovery of the 1876 expedition should be followed as closely as possible. It was then considered whether the new ship should have a midship section, like the Fram, of a peg-top character to facilitate her rising to ice pressure, but as there is not the same likelihood of severe nips in the south, it was thought better to have an ordinary section, with a view to the probability of heavy weather conditions. A complement of 43 souls was to be arranged for, with accommodation equal in all respects to a man-of-war of the same size, and there was to be stowage for two years’ provisions and 335 tons of coal. The ship was to be of 400 I.H.P. and fitted with a two-bladed lifting screw. Mr Smith adopted a special plan for shipping and unshipping the rudder.
That the ship should be absolutely free from magnetic qualities was impossible, owing to the engine and boilers. But in order that there should be as little as possible, steel and iron were excluded from a space having a radius of 30 feet from where the magnetic observatory was placed.
Instead of the usual square stern, a round form of stern was adopted, which gave better protection to the rudder and screw and was much more satisfactory in heavy seas. It gave the helmsman nearly dry quarters.
The length of the ship on the water line was finally fixed at 179 ft., the breadth 34 ft., the depth amidships 18 ft. She was to be barque-rigged and of 735 gross and 483 registered tonnage. The framing throughout was of oak, the keel of elm. The boats were a sailing cutter (which was not taken south), four 26-foot whalers, and two Norwegian prams.
The Dundee Shipbuilders Company undertook her construction for £34,050 and £10,322 for the engines, and on March 16th, 1900, the keel was laid. On March 21st, 1901, Lady Markham launched the ship at Dundee, and gave her the name of the Discovery. She left Dundee on the 3rd June, was in the East India Docks for 55 days loading, and on August 1st she arrived at Stokes Bay204.
I had selected the fittest commander in my own mind in 1887, when I was on board the Active in the West Indies, the guest of my cousin Commodore Markham, then in command of the training squadron, the other ships being the Rover, Volage, and Calypso. When we were at St Kitts, March 1st, 1887, the lieutenants got up a service cutter race. The boats were to be at anchor with awnings spread. They were to get under way and make sail, beat up to windward for a mile, round a buoy, down mast and sail, pull down to the starting point, anchor and spread awning again. The race tried several qualities. For a long time it was a close thing between two midshipmen, Robert Falcon Scott and Hyde Parker. However, Scott won the race and on the 5th he dined with us. He was then 18, and I was much struck by his intelligence, information, and the charm of his manner. My experience taught me that it would be years before an expedition would be ready, and I believed that Scott was the destined man to command it. At Vigo we were thrown together again, when my young friend was torpedo lieutenant of the Empress of India, and I was more than ever impressed by his evident vocation for such a command. When the time came for the selection I consulted Captain (now Admiral Sir George) Egerton, an Arctic officer with a wide knowledge of men and much experience in the service. He sent me several names, but Scott’s was first, and he had excellent testimonials. As a torpedo lieutenant he had gone through a special course of training in surveying, and he wrote the whole section on mining survey in the Torpedo Manual, and suggested all the instruments to be used. He had a thorough knowledge of the principles of surveying and of surveying instruments, as well as of electricity and magnetism. Seven of the ships in which he had served were masted, and frequently under sail.
Scott was now just the right age for a leader of a polar expedition, and admirably adapted for such a responsible post from every point of view. He was recommended very strongly by Captain Egerton, by his Admiral, and also by the First Lord and the First Sea Lord of the Admiralty. Yet there was long and tedious opposition from Joint Committees, Special Committees, Sub-Committees and all the complicated apparatus which our junction with the Royal Society involved, harder to force a way through than the most impenetrable of ice-packs. But we got through and I had the pleasure of signing Scott’s appointment on the 9th June, 1900. On the 30th he was promoted to the rank of Commander, the numerous committees were gradually got rid of, and Scott took command.
Albert Armitage, a Worcester boy and a very efficient P. and O. officer, who had served throughout Jackson’s expedition and was with Jackson on his long sledge journey round Alexandra Land, was selected by me as Navigator and in charge of magnetic observations at sea, and was approved by Captain Scott.
Some years before, on June 14th, 1892, I was in a river steamer going down to Greenhithe to see the boat-race between the Conway and Worcester cadets. I saw on board a young Conway cadet who bore a remarkable resemblance to Wyatt Rawson, the gallant Arctic officer in the expedition of 1875–76. The boy, Charles Royds, was his nephew, and I found that he was most anxious to get into the navy. He succeeded in July, 1892. His career was meritorious and he won golden opinions from his captains. He was the first to volunteer, and no better man could be found as First Lieutenant. He also took charge of the meteorology. He was a good musician, both vocal and instrumental, a thorough seaman, and a good all round man. Scott wrote of him that he was a first-rate worker, an excellent officer, popular with the men, and the right man in the right place as First Lieutenant.
Michael Barne was Scott’s special choice. The younger son of Colonel and Lady Constance Barne of Sotterley in Suffolk, and great-grandson of Admiral Sir George Seymour, he was born in 1877. He was always ready to help any one, full of good humour, the most unselfish of mortals, and entirely to be trusted in any position of responsibility. He had charge of all the deep sea apparatus and performed the duty right well.
The Engineer Lieutenant, Reginald Skelton, was an officer of great ability. In addition to his very arduous work in the engine room, he had charge of the dark room, stored all the negatives of interest, assisted with the pendulum observations, and, with Dr Wilson, did all the bird-skinning.
No more Lieutenants could be obtained from the Admiralty, so Captain Scott had to turn elsewhere and accepted Ernest Shackleton as the junior executive. He had been in the merchant service since 1890, and was very energetic and zealous. I got him made a Sub-Lieutenant in the Naval Reserve.
Dr Koettlitz, the surgeon, had served in Jackson’s expedition., Dr Edward Wilson, of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, also surgeon, was the vertebrate zoologist. He had quite the keenest intellect of any one on board, and possessed great artistic talent, with a marvellous capacity for work. The special scientific staff consisted of Mr Hodgson, the invertebrate zoologist, Curator of the Plymouth Museum; Mr Ferrar, a very able young geologist, a graduate of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge; and Mr Bernacchi the physicist, who had previously been in the Southern Cross Antarctic expedition.
The Admiralty was liberal as regards volunteers, allowing 22 petty officers, able seamen, and stokers to join, and two marines, all excellent men. Indeed the whole ship’s company exclusive of the officers was naval except Clark, the cook’s mate and laboratory attendant, and Weller, who was in charge of the dogs.
A colossal amount of work and responsibility fell upon the shoulders of Captain Scott. Fortunately we had, in the person of Mr Cyril Longhurst, an admirable hard working and conscientious secretary, though he was then very young. Close attention was given to the supply of provisions, as one of the most important considerations. The food for the sledge travellers was mainly pemmican. It used to be made at Clarence Yard of the very best quality, but the art was lost. Scott had to fall back upon the very inferior article made at Chicago, and a better kind manufactured by Beauvais at Copenhagen. He himself visited the Beauvais factory, and ultimately took 500 lb. of American and 1500 lb. of Beauvais’ pemmican. Extreme care was taken in the examination of the preserved meats, soups, vegetables, and fruits. Dr Collingridge, medical officer for the city of London, appointed Mr Spadaccini for this duty, and 10,250 lb. in 1542 packages of other provisions were accepted, and 231 lb. rejected. But Captain Scott was deeply impressed with the urgency of supplying fresh meat to his people whenever it was possible.
Our dockyards had also lost the tradition of the clothing, sledge equipments, and sledges, which had been brought almost to perfection as supplied to the Franklin search expeditions. Scott had to turn to Norway for these things, and he was a good deal guided by Armitage, whose experience was the most recent, though he saw to the matter himself in Norway. The peltry, reindeer sleeping-bags, 4 bales of Lapland grass, and 70 pairs of ski (7 ft. h in.) were supplied from this source, as well as nine 9 ft. sledges of Nansen’s pattern with broad ski runners, five of 7½ ft., and five iron shod and fastened to be used for work in winter quarters205.
Scott thought that it might be useful to have a captive balloon, whence to reconnoitre and obtain more extensive views, and the idea was strongly supported by Sir Joseph Hooker. Accordingly the necessary gear was provided, and an officer and two men went to Aldershot for instruction. The balloon was of the army pattern, and the gas was taken in sixty heavy tubes which were stowed on deck. There were also dynamos, for electric lighting. When the steam-driven dynamos were not at work, an iron-sailed windmill could be fitted, driving the dynamo at its base and thus supplying the accumulators with electric current.
Most of the instruments were lent by the Admiralty—astronomical, magnetic, meteorological, pendulum, and seismograph, as well as sounding gear with all the newest inventions, and dredging nets.
Baron Richthofen suggested to me that there should be synchronous observations at as many other observatories as possible. Captain Creak fully concurred and, in concert with him, I wrote to the observatories at Kew, Falmouth, Potsdam, Bombay, Mauritius, Melbourne, and Christ Church (N.Z.), also making arrangements with the Argentine Government for Staten Island, and for observations at Kerguelen Island, and with the Gauss. The object was to obtain a series of synoptic charts which would allow of the variations in the magnetic conditions of the whole earth being traced in detail during a definite period, and so provide the necessary basis from which alone the fundamental principles of terrestrial magnetism can be more closely approached. The observing stations to take part in this international co-operation were distributed over the globe with a uniformity never before attained.
The observations were of two classes: (1) of the three elements at intervals of an hour on certain terminal days, so as to obtain a comprehensive view of the diurnal variations of terrestrial magnetism, (2) of the three elements during one specified hour on each term day, to trace the course of individual disturbances. The Discovery, the Gauss, and all the observatories were supplied with identical forms for term days and term hours; declination, horizontal force, vertical force. The magnetic observations were the most carefully planned and completely thought out of all the branches of scientific work carried on by the expedition.
There was a complete supply of meteorological instruments under the able management of Lieutenant Royds, a most careful and accurate observer and recorder, and the observations were two-hourly, taken by the officers of the watch. Special instruments were taken out for use on shore including spirit thermometers graduated as low as -90° Fahr., and a Dines pressure anemometer. A photographic spectrometer was to be used for observing the auroras.
The most important question to be decided was the direction the expedition should take. To consider it with care and understanding we divided the regions within the Antarctic Circle into four quadrants—the Victoria Quadrant from 90° E. to 180°, the Ross Quadrant from 180° E. to 90° W., the Weddell Quadrant from 90° W. to 0°, and the Enderby Quadrant from 0° to 90° E. We knew from Captain Cook’s conclusion, and he was always right, that there was an extensive continent round the south pole, and that the coast line came furthest north to the south of Australia and the Cape, and receded furthest south in the King George IV Sea of Weddell and the Pacific. The correctness of Captain Cook’s view as regards the northern extension was proved by the discoveries of Balleny, Biscoe, and Kempe and confirmed, as regards Balleny’s discoveries, by Dumont d’Urville and Wilkes. Apparently, in most parts of this coast, access would be impossible owing to the lofty ice cliffs. Moreover, merely sighting ice cliffs at a distance is of no use. The great discoveries of Sir James Ross offered far better opportunities of landing. I felt that the chief point should be the finding of the land of Antarctica, not the ice cap which conceals everything. The land would be found on coasts facing east, the east coast of Victoria Land, and east coast of Graham Land; the ice cliffs occur mainly on northern and western-facing coasts.
The main object of the expedition, then, would be to explore this Antarctic continent by land, to ascertain its physical features, and above all to discover the character of its rocks, and to find fossils throwing light on its geological history. We therefore decided that the Discovery should follow in the wake of Sir James Ross, and winter on the Victorian coast. I was anxious that everything else should be left to the discretion of Captain Scott.
The instructions were drafted in January 1901. The first paragraph stated the objects to be discovery and exploration. Importance was also attached to a magnetic survey and to meteorological, oceanographic, geological, biological, and physical investigations and researches. After paragraphs dealing with the relations with a chief of the scientific staff—who, perhaps fortunately, did not go out, for there could have been no fitter chief of the scientific staff than Scott himself—particular attention was called to the discovery of new coast lines, of the depth and nature of the ice cap, of the nature of the mountain ranges, and of the underlying fossiliferous rocks. Co-operation with the German expedition was enjoined whenever possible. Attention was drawn to the region to the east of the Great Barrier, which was entirely unknown, and an effort was to be made to discover land in the Ross Quadrant. Equal importance was attached to an examination of the Barrier, of the volcanic region, and to journeys to the west and south. Discretion to winter with the ship was left to Captain Scott. All mention of the south pole as an objective was carefully avoided.
I planned an Antarctic Manual on the lines of the Arctic Manuals prepared for the expedition of 1875–76, securing the services of Mr G. Murray as editor. It proved very useful, the first part containing instructions and information by leading men of science, and the second part being the narratives of Biscoe, Balleny, Dumont d’Urville, and Wilkes, with papers on polar travelling by Sir Leopold M’Clintock and on the exploration of Antarctic lands by Arçtowski.
In July 1901 the great work of fitting out the expedition was fast approaching completion. The Geographical Club gave the officers a farewell dinner at Greenwich on the 3rd. There were many toasts, and Captain Scott did a very graceful thing in proposing the health of our Secretary, Mr Longhurst, “with whom,” he said, “he had worked so pleasantly for nearly a year, and whose services had been so valuable to the expedition.” On the 16th the Bishop of London visited the Discovery, held service and delivered a very impressive address to officers and men206. He presented the books for divine service, and a prayer which he had written for daily use.
On August 5th, 1901, when the Discovery was at Cowes, the King and Queen went on board, and his Majesty made a charming speech to the men. Then the good ship started on her mission. No finer set of men ever left these shores, nor were men ever led by a finer captain.