William Speirs Bruce

On the morning of 2nd November 1902, the SY Scotia quietly slipped her moorings at Troon and sailed into the Irish Channel.  A former Norwegian whaler, 400 tons and barque-rigged, she had been re-fitted in a Clyde shipyard and was heading south, to the bottom of the world.   There was no tumultuous farewell, although handkerchiefs fluttered on a couple of tug boats;  from her decks, the strains of Auld Lang Syne floated over the water.  The Scottish National Antarctic Expedition had begun.

On board was a 35-year-old Scotsman named William Speirs Bruce.  This was his brainchild, his dream, and he was setting forth in a way that best suited his temperament.  Not for Bruce the naval splendour of Scott or the showmanship of Shackleton:  this quietly spoken scientist had a natural dislike of the limelight, but beneath his gentle exterior lay a fiercely patriotic heart and a will of iron.

Who was William Speirs Bruce, and what had drawn him to the Antarctic? 

“A shy gentle fellow with appealing eyes... always ready to do a kindness to anyone... his love of Nature was unusually strong.”   Hugh Robert Mill, quoted in ‘William Speirs Bruce’ by Peter Speak

An internet search brings up a photograph of a middle-aged man with heavy brows and dark hair, slightly greying;  any humour around his mouth is smothered by the obligatory Victorian beard.  His face is solemn and slightly brooding in expression, as if sitting for photographs is a nuisance which must be politely endured.  He doesn’t look to have the kind of stamina necessary for braving a polar winter;  but appearances can be deceptive.  

Born in London in 1867, the son of a well-to-do doctor, William Speirs Bruce enjoyed a privileged upbringing and a good education.  He was destined to follow his father into the medical profession, until a spell at Patrick Geddes’ summer school in Edinburgh captured his imagination and changed the course of his life.  Bruce assisted Sir John Murray in studying specimens brought back from the Challenger expedition, and mingled with brilliant scientists such P G Tait, J Arthur Thomson and Alexander Buchan.  He found a good friend in W G Burn Murdoch, and on an impulse they embarked together on the Dundee Whaling Expedition of 1892, which travelled to the Antarctic.  Bruce’s official title was ship’s surgeon, but his main concern was to make scientific discoveries about the wildlife, oceans and climate of the unknown continent.  He seems to have had a serious falling-out with the captain, who tossed some of his specimens overboard in an angry fit;  but, far from being discouraged, Bruce couldn’t wait to go back:

“I am burning to be off again anywhere, but particularly to the far South, where I believe there is a vast sphere for research.”  Letter to Hugh Robert Mill, from ‘William Speirs Bruce’ by Peter Speak

At this time, Bruce was one of only a handful of people who had ever been to Antarctica.  In his determination to return, he learned to sledge and ski, and he lived for the best part of a year at the top of Ben Nevis, in the meteorological observatory.   Despite his rather stooping gait he was surprisingly fit, and Burn Murdoch observed that he could “reel off a sixty-mile walk in a day without turning a hair.”   When plans for a British Antarctic expedition were being discussed in London, Bruce must have been one of the most eligible men to lead it.  But circumstance and a clash of temperaments ensured that he didn’t.

The British National Antarctic Expedition expedition had the support of the government, the Royal Society and the Royal Geographical Society, and for this reason alone it was guaranteed plenty of exposure in the press.  Sir Clements Markham, President of the RGS and a former Naval officer, had hand-picked Robert Falcon Scott to lead the enterprise, and nothing was going to cloud his glory.  He was as staunch a patriot to his own country as Bruce was to his, but in a much more grandiloquent manner;  and he was as stubborn as he was clever.  To Markham, the South Pole was almost literally a flagstaff upon which the Union Jack would be soon hoisted with full ceremonial splendour.  Bruce had applied to be a member of the expedition, and Markham had written a short, non-committal reply, asking him to call when he was next in town;  but, fatefully, Bruce never did.  

If Bruce had taken himself down to London, and allowed himself to be seen and courted among all the clubs and fashionable restaurants and society meeting rooms, how different it might have been.  But it was against his nature, and he lacked the skills of charm and persuasion.  Meanwhile, the vast region of Antarctica lay remote and unexplored, and Bruce saw no reason why Scotland shouldn’t play a part in the adventure.   He announced his intentions quite casually in a second letter to Sir Clements, nearly a year later:

“I may say I am not without hopes of being able to raise sufficient capital whereby I could take out a second British ship to explore in the Antarctic Regions.”  

As his eyes flickered down the letter, Markham’s feelings about Bruce rocketed disastrously from lukewarm tolerance to overheated outrage.  Any remote chances that Bruce had of joining his expedition were now well and truly squashed.  For his own part, Bruce didn’t deliberately go about sending Markham into an apoplexy, but it’s almost as though his independent nature had been directing him onto a different path all the time.  With the backing of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, and the financial support of several wealthy investors including the Coats brothers of Paisley, he set about acquiring a suitable vessel and adapting her to survive the Antarctic winter.   By November 1902 the Scotia was ready to depart.

In addition to her crew of 27, the Scotia carried six scientific staff, a taxidermist, an artist, and a handful of sledge dogs.  Her captain was Bruce’s friend, Thomas Robertson of Peterhead.  Below decks were two fully equipped scientific laboratories, ready to record and examine a huge range of findings, from meteorological observations to ocean depth and Antarctic fauna.  Bruce had stated quite clearly that “no unnecessary sacrifice to the ship, or of scientific work and records” would be made in attempting to reach the South Pole;  but his wife, Jessie, had embroidered a Scottish saltire bearing the initials ‘SNAE’, which would undoubtedly have given Sir Clements Markham recurring nightmares. 

On 6th January 1903 the ship reached the Falkland Islands;  and by the end of March she was stuck fast in the ice around the South Orkneys, in a place they named Scotia Bay.   Far from being a disaster, this was an anticipated event for any vessel which was planning to over-winter in the freezing seas of the Antarctic.  The Scotia was well prepared:  to survive the crushing impact of the ice, her sides had been strengthened with timbers 25 inches thick, and her stores of food had been supplemented by gifts of alcohol and tobacco from the Coats brothers.  Not that Bruce intended to sit back in an armchair and smoke a pipe.  As the season turned towards perpetual darkness, he had a busy programme of work to do.

First of all, the men were tasked with building a hut on the shore of Laurie Island.  This would serve as a meteorological station, and also as a base for the handful of hardy staff who would remain there in the summer.   For materials, they used stones gathered from the island and timbers from the ship’s supplies;  it must have been a long, cold job but the resulting structure was more than adequate for the purpose.  It was named Omond House after Robert Traill Omond, the first superintendent of the weather station on Ben Nevis;  a keen supporter of Bruce’s venture, Omond had supplied the plans for the building.  Amazingly, it still survives, minus the roof.

After enduring the long, dark winter on board the Scotia, Bruce saw six men safely ensconced in the hut and then set sail for Buenos Aires where the Scotia stocked up on fuel and supplies.  While he was there, Bruce sought out the British Consul and, through him, telegraphed the British Government to ask if they wished to lay a claim to the meteorological station that he had just established.  He was eager to see his work continued, and he must have been disappointed when the reply came back as negative.  He therefore handed it over to a team of Argentinian scientists, who accompanied him back to South Orkney to relieve the team of six original staff;  two of these chose to remain at Omond House for another year.

In March 1904, when the Scotia finally set sail for home, she did so without her First Engineer, Allan Ramsay, who had died of heart failure during the expedition.  His was the only life lost on the expedition, and he was buried with great sadness on the beach of Laurie Island. 

Fiercely loyal to his men, Bruce would have felt Ramsay’s loss keenly, but his expedition was still a resounding success.  He had explored over 4,000 miles of uncharted ocean and recorded over 1,100 species of fauna and flora;  he had discovered new territory, which he named Coats Land;  he had set up a Post Office in the South Orkneys, and was carrying the first letters from the Antarctic;  and he had established the continent’s first meteorological station, whose recordings have continued unbroken right up to the present day.  It is also remarkable that, apart from the one loss, all his men had survived and were in good health. 

The Scotia sailed back into the Clyde on 21st July 1904 and was greeted with a hearty welcome.  Before a celebratory lunch, Sir John Murray, President of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, presented Bruce with the Society’s Gold Medal and read a telegram of congratulations from Edward VII.   Scotland’s Antarctic hero, modest and humble to the last, must have permitted himself a contented smile. 

“We never heard him once grumble about himself, though he was neither to hold or bend when he thought some injustice was being done to, or slight cast on, his men, on his colleagues, on his laboratory, on his Scotland.  Then one got glimpses of the volcano which his gentle spirit usually kept sleeping.”  J Arthur Thomson

 

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Article for RSGS by Jo Woolf, February 2016

 

 

Sources & quotes:

 

‘William Speirs Bruce’ by Peter Speak

‘Polar Exploration’ by W S Bruce

‘The Voyage of the Scotia’ by Mossman, Pirie, Brown

Scottish Geographical Journal