Captain Robert Falcon Scott CVO was a Royal Navy officer and explorer. He led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery expedition of 1901–1904 and the ill-fated Terra Nova expedition of 1910–1913. On the first expedition, he set a new southern record by marching to latitude 82°S and discovered the Antarctic Plateau, on which the South Pole is located. Following the news of his death, Scott became a celebrated hero.
About Robert Falcon Scott in brief
Captain Robert Falcon Scott CVO was a Royal Navy officer and explorer. He led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery expedition of 1901–1904 and the ill-fated Terra Nova expedition of 1910–1913. On the first expedition, he set a new southern record by marching to latitude 82°S and discovered the Antarctic Plateau, on which the South Pole is located. Scott and his party’s bodies were discovered, they had in their possession the first Antarctic fossils ever discovered. Following the news of his death, Scott became a celebrated hero, a status reflected by memorials erected across the UK. However, in the last decades of the 20th century, questions were raised about his competence and character. Scott was born on 6 June 1868, the third of six children and elder son of John Edward, a brewer and magistrate, and Hannah Scott of Stoke Damerel, near Devonport. Scott’s grandfather and four uncles all had served in the army or navy. Scott spent four years at a local day school before being sent to Stubbington House School in Hampshire. Scott began his naval career in 1881, as a 13-year-old cadet. In July 1883, Scott passed out of Britannia as a midshipman, seventh overall in a class of 26. By October, he was en route to South Africa to join HMS Boadicea, the flagship of the Cape squadron, the first of several ships on which he served. In 1891, he applied for a two-year torpedo training course on HMS Vernon, an important step in his career.
In March 1888 Scott passed his examinations with four first class certificates out of five. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1889 after a long spell in foreign waters. During the early period of Scott’s naval career, he investigated a possible scandal in Scott’s early career, when he was a lieutenant on HMS Amphion. During this period, Scott was a captain on the research vessel HMS Amphion, a research vessel on which Amundsen and Roald Roaldsen, polar historian Roland Huntford and polar explorer Roald Amundson, were involved in a dual biography of Scott and Roundsen. In the summer of 1893, while commanding a torpedo boat, Scott ran a mishap which earned him a mild rebuke for his research research. He also served as a lieutenant in the Royal Navy from 1889 to 1890. In 1899, he had a chance encounter with Sir Clements Markham, the president of the Royal Geographical Society, and thus learned of a planned Antarctic expedition, which he soon volunteered to lead. Having taken this step, his name became inseparably associated with the Antarctic, the field of work to which he remained committed during the final 12 years of his life. The fossils were determined to be from the Glossopteris tree and proved that Antarctica was once forested and joined to other continents. On 1 March 1887, Markham observed Midshipman Scott’s cutter winning a race across the bay.
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