The Terra Nova Expedition, officially the British Antarctic Expedition, was an expedition to Antarctica which took place between 1910 and 1913. Led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott, the expedition had various scientific and geographical objectives. Scott wished to continue the scientific work that he had begun when leading the Discovery Expedition from 1901 to 1904, and wanted to be the first to reach the geographic South Pole.
He and four companions attained the pole on 17 January 1912, where they found that a Norwegian team led by Roald Amundsen had preceded them by 34 days. Scott's party of five died on the return journey from the pole; some of their bodies, journals, and photographs were found by a search party eight months later. The expedition, named after its supply ship, was a private venture financed by public contributions and a government grant. It had further backing from the Admiralty, which released experienced seamen to the expedition, and from the Royal Geographical Society. The expedition's team of scientists carried out a comprehensive scientific programme, while other parties explored Victoria Land and the Western Mountains. An attempted landing on and exploration of King Edward VII Land was unsuccessful. A journey to Cape Crozier in June and July 1911 was the first extended sledging journey in the depths of the Antarctic winter.
For many years after his death, Scott's status as tragic hero was unchallenged and few questions were asked about the causes of the disaster which overcame his polar party. In the final quarter of the 20th century the expedition came under closer scrutiny, and more critical views were expressed about its organization and management. The degree of Scott's personal culpability and, more recently, the culpability of certain expedition members, remains controversial.
Preparations
Background
After RRS Discovery's return from the Antarctic in 1904, Captain Robert Falcon Scott eventually resumed his naval career but continued to nurse ambitions of returning south, with the conquest of the South Pole as his specific target. The Discovery Expedition had made a significant contribution to Antarctic scientific and geographical knowledge, but in terms of penetration southward had reached only 82° 17' and had not traversed the Great Ice Barrier.
In 1909, Scott received news that Ernest Shackleton's Nimrod expedition had narrowly failed to reach the Pole. Starting from a base close to Scott's Discovery anchorage in McMurdo Sound, Shackleton had crossed the Great Ice Barrier, discovered the Beardmore Glacier route to the Polar Plateau, and had struck out for the Pole. He had been forced to turn for home at 88° 23' S, less than 100 geographical miles (112 miles (180 km)) from his objective. Scott had claimed the McMurdo Sound area as his own "field of work", and Shackleton's use of the area as a base was in breach of an undertaking he gave Scott. This soured relations between the two explorers, and increased Scott's determination to surpass Shackleton's achievements.
As he made his preparations for a further expedition, Scott was aware of other impending polar ventures. A German Expedition under Wilhelm Filchner announced plans of crossing Antarctica. Filchner met with Scott in May 1910 prior to Scott's departure to settle any possible overlapping activities. Furthermore a Japanese expedition was being planned; the Australasian Antarctic Expedition under Douglas Mawson was to leave in 1911, but would be working in a different sector of the continent; and Roald Amundsen, a potential rival from Norway, had also announced plans for an Arctic voyage.
Personnel
65 men (including replacements) formed the shore and ship's parties of the Terra Nova Expedition. They were chosen from 8,000 applicants, and included seven Discovery veterans together with five who had been with Shackleton on his 1907–1909 expedition. Lieutenant Edward Evans, who had been the navigating officer on Morning, the Discovery Expedition's relief ship in 1904, was appointed Scott's second-in-command. Evans had abandoned plans to mount his own expedition and transferred his financial backing to Scott.
Among the other serving Royal Navy personnel released by the Admiralty were Lieutenant Harry Pennell, who would serve as navigator and take command of Terra Nova once the shore parties had landed; and two Surgeon-Lieutenants, George Murray Levick and Edward L. Atkinson. Ex-Royal Navy officer Victor Campbell, known as "The Wicked Mate", was one of the few who had skills in skiing, and was chosen to lead the party that would explore King Edward VII Land. Two non-Royal Navy officers were appointed: Henry Robertson Bowers ("Birdie"), who was a lieutenant in the Royal Indian Marine, and Lawrence Oates ("Titus"), an Army captain from the 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons. Oates, independently wealthy, volunteered £1,000 (equivalent to about £102,000 in 2025) and his services to the expedition.
The Admiralty also provided a largely naval lower deck, including the Antarctic veterans Edgar Evans (no relation to Edward Evans), Tom Crean and William Lashly. Other seamen in the shore party included Patrick Keohane, Robert Forde, Thomas Clissold (cook) and Frederick Hooper (domestic steward). Dimitri Gerov (dog driver), a Russian, and Anton Omelchenko (groom), a Ukrainian, also landed.
To head his scientific programme, Scott appointed Edward Wilson ("Bill") as chief scientist. Wilson was Scott's closest confidant among the party; on the Discovery Expedition he had accompanied Scott on the Farthest South march to 80°S. As well as being a qualified medical doctor and a distinguished research zoologist, he was also a talented illustrator. Wilson's scientific team—which Scott's biographer David Crane considered "as impressive a group of scientists as had ever been on a polar expedition"—included some who would enjoy later careers of distinction: meteorologist George Simpson; Canadian physicist Charles Wright; and geologists Frank Debenham and Raymond Priestley. Senior geologist T. Griffith Taylor, biologists Edward W. Nelson and Denis G. Lillie, and assistant zoologist Apsley Cherry-Garrard completed the team.
Cherry-Garrard had no scientific training, but was a protégé of Wilson's. He had, like Oates, contributed £1,000 to funds. After first being turned down by Scott, he allowed his contribution to stand, which impressed Scott sufficiently for him to reverse his decision. Crane describes Cherry-Garrard as "the future interpreter, historian and conscience of the expedition." Herbert Ponting was the expedition's photographer, whose pictures would leave a vivid visual record. On the advice of explorer Fridtjof Nansen, Scott recruited a young Norwegian ski expert, Tryggve Gran.
Transport
Scott had decided on a mixed transport strategy, relying on contributions from dogs, motor sledges and ponies. He appointed Cecil Meares to take charge of the dog teams and recruited Shackleton's former motor specialist, Bernard Day, to run the motor sledges. Oates would be in charge of the ponies, but as he could not join the expedition until May 1910, Scott instructed Meares, who knew nothing of horses, to buy them—with unfortunate consequences for their quality and performance.
A "polarised" motor car had been unsuccessfully tried in the Antarctic by Shackleton, on his 1907–1909 expedition, while his pioneering use of ponies had transported him as far as the foot of the Beardmore Glacier. Scott believed that ponies had served Shackleton well, and he thought he could resolve the motor traction problem by developing a tracked snow "motor" (the forerunner of the Snowcat and of the tank). Scott always intended to rely on man-hauling for the Polar Plateau, believing it impossible to ascend the Beardmore Glacier with motors or with animals. The motors and animals would be used to haul loads only across the Barrier, enabling the men to preserve their strength for the later Glacier and Plateau stages. In practice, the motor sledges proved only briefly useful, and the ponies' performance was affected by their age and poor condition. As to dogs, while Scott's experiences on Discovery had made him dubious of their reliability, his writings show that he recognised their effectiveness in the right hands. As the expedition developed, he became increasingly impressed with their capabilities.
Finance
Unlike the Discovery Expedition, where fundraising was handled jointly by the Royal Society and the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), the Terra Nova Expedition was organised as a private venture without significant institutional support. Scott estimated the total cost at £40,000, half of which was eventually met by a government grant. The balance was raised by public subscription and loans. The expedition was further assisted by the free supply of a range of provisions and equipment from sympathetic commercial firms. The fund-raising task was largely carried out by Scott, and was a considerable drain on his time and energy, continuing in South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand after Terra Nova had sailed from British waters.
By far the largest single cost was the purchase of the ship Terra Nova, for £12,500. Terra Nova had been in Antarctica before, as part of the second Discovery relief operation. Scott wanted to sail her as a naval vessel under the White Ensign; to enable this, he obtained membership of the Royal Yacht Squadron for £100. He was thus able to impose naval discipline on the expedition, and as a registered yacht of the Squadron, Terra Nova became exempt from Board of Trade regulations which might otherwise have deemed her unfit to sail.
Objectives
Scott defined the objects of the expedition in his initial public appeal: "The main objective of this expedition is to reach the South Pole, and to secure for the British Empire the honour of this achievement." There were other objectives, both scientific and geographical; the scientific work was considered by Wilson as the main work of the expedition: "No one can say that it will have only been a Pole-hunt ... We want the scientific work to make the bagging of the Pole merely an item in the results." He hoped to continue investigations, begun during the Discovery Expedition, of the emperor penguin colony at Cape Crozier and to fulfil a programme of geological, magnetic and meteorology studies on an "unprecedented" scale. There were further plans to explore King Edward VII Land, a venture described by Campbell, who was to lead it, as "the thing of the whole expedition", and Victoria Land.
First season, 1910–1911
Voyage out
Terra Nova sailed from Cardiff on 15 June 1910. Scott, detained by expedition business, sailed later on a faster passenger liner and joined the ship in South Africa. In Melbourne he left Terra Nova to continue fund-raising while the ship proceeded to New Zealand. Waiting for Scott in Melbourne was a telegram from Amundsen, informing Scott that the Norwegian was "proceeding south"; the telegram was the first indication to Scott that he was in a race. When asked by the press for a reaction, Scott replied that his plans would not change and that he would not sacrifice the expedition's scientific goals to win the race to the Pole. In his diary he wrote that Amundsen had a fair chance of success, and perhaps deserved his luck if he got through.
Scott rejoined Terra Nova in New Zealand, where additional supplies were taken aboard, including 34 dogs, 19 Siberian ponies and three motorised sledges. The ship, heavily overloaded, finally left Port Chalmers on 29 November. During the first days of December the ship was struck by a heavy storm; at one point, with the ship taking heavy seas and the pumps having failed, the crew had to bail her out with buckets. The storm resulted in the loss of two ponies, a dog, 10 long tons (10,000 kg) of coal and 65 imperial gallons (300 L) of petrol. On 10 December, Terra Nova met the southern pack ice and was halted, remaining for twenty days before breaking clear and continuing southward. The delay, which Scott attributed to "sheer bad luck", had consumed 6.1 long tons (6,200 kg) of coal.
Cape Evans base
Arriving off Ross Island on 4 January 1911, Terra Nova scouted for possible landing sites around Cape Crozier at the eastern point of the island, before proceeding to McMurdo Sound to its west, where both Discovery and Nimrod had previously landed.
After Scott had considered various possible wintering spots, he chose a cape remembered from the Discovery days as the "Skuary", about 15 miles (24 km) north of Scott's 1902 base at Hut Point. Scott hoped that this location, which he renamed Cape Evans after his second-in-command, would be free of ice in the short Antarctic summer, enabling the ship to come and go. As the seas to the south froze over, the expedition would have ready access over the ice to Hut Point and the Barrier.
At Cape Evans the shore parties disembarked, with the ponies, dogs, the three motorised sledges (one of which was lost during unloading), and the bulk of the party's stores. Scott was "astonished at the strength of the ponies" as they transferred stores and materials from ship to shore. A prefabricated accommodation hut measuring 50 by 25 feet (15.2 m × 7.6 m) was erected and made habitable by 18 January.