Who, you might ask? William Speirs Bruce, let’s call him Bruce,
may not be as famous as other Antarctic explorers, such as Scott and Shackleton,
but he certainly did his bit for Antarctic exploration!
Bruce was from Scotland and headed up the Scottish National Antarctic
Expedition 100 years ago. Bruce wanted a place on Britain's “Discovery”
expedition – which was ultimately to be led by Scott, with Shackleton
among the crew, but he was snubbed by the organisers, who took so long
to make a decision on whether to include him or not, that Bruce made his
own expedition. Bruce was actually an experienced whaler, and he had already
been to Antartica and had spent almost a year at the meteorological station
at the top of Ben Nevis, (cold, brrrr!) training himself in the methodology
of recording weather and climate. So, really, Bruce was the best qualified
person to be on any Antartica expedition with all his polar experience.
But by launching an alternative expedition to the one he’d been
waiting to go on for so long, he annoyed the wealthy and powerful Sir
Clements Markham, of the Royal Geographical Society. So Bruce raised funds
from the wealthy Coats family of Paisley, near Glasgow, and set off on
the voyage he dubbed the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition. He took
a converted Norwegian whaling ship, which he named the Scotia. Unlike
Scott, he had no interest in a race to the South Pole – his priority was
to do original scientific research. The aim had been to establish a scientific
research station on the continent, but bad weather prevented that.
Instead, they set it up on a sub-Antarctic Island, called Laurie Island,
where scientists are still working today.
David Munro, president of the Scottish Royal Geographical Society, in
Glasgow, said: “Bruce began to believe that polar exploration was
becoming more of an adventure than a science and it was only the science
he was interested in.
“From that point of view the expedition was a huge success – they
discovered several hundred miles of previously unknown Antarctic continent,
collected a wealth of geological and biological specimens and when they
came back, published six volumes of scientific reports on their results.”
Bruce even took a photo of a Scottish piper dressed in a kilt serenading
a penguin on the ice! Apparently, the idea was that they were going to
play it jigs, strathspeys, reels, slow marches, etc, and see if the penguin
had any reaction.
Some people say that it is because Bruce’s expedition was so well
run, that this is why so few people today have heard of him!
