# Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Bruce, William Speirs

​BRUCE, WILLIAM SPEIRS (1867-1921), polar explorer and oceanographer, was born in London 1 August 1867, the fourth child of Samuel Noble Bruce, M.R.C.S., of Edinburgh, by his wife, Mary, daughter of L. Wild Lloyd, and grandson of the Rev. William Bruce, minister of the Swedenborgian church, Hatton Garden. On his father’s side he was of Scottish and Norse descent. On leaving Norfolk county school, North Elmham, Bruce went to Edinburgh University to read medicine, but he never qualified. The close association of Edinburgh with the Challenger expedition (1872-1876) turned his interests to the sea and exploration. In 1892-1893 he sailed as surgeon in the Dundee whaler Balaena for the South Shetlands and Graham Land, where he made researches in zoology and discovered the first evidence in favour of the Antarctic anticyclone. After fruitless attempts to raise funds for the exploration of South Georgia, he took charge in 1895 of the high-level meteorological observatory on Ben Nevis, but left it in 1896 to join the Jackson-Harmsworth expedition in Franz Josef Land, where he stayed a year, engaged in biological work. He made short voyages in 1898 with Major Andrew Coats in the Blencathra to Kolguev, Novaya Zemlya, and the Barents Sea, and with the Prince of Monaco in the Princesse Alice to Bear Island, Hope Island, and Spitzbergen. In 1899, with the Prince of Monaco, he explored and charted Red Bay, Spitzbergen.
Feeling that now he had gained the necessary experience in polar work, Bruce announced in 1900 his plans for a Scottish national Antarctic expedition to explore the Weddell Sea. Funds were raised in Scotland, and the expedition sailed in November 1902. The Scotia spent two summers in oceanographical and biological work in the Weddell Sea and South Atlantic. Coats Land was discovered in March 1904 and proved to be part of the Antarctic continent. The intervening winter was spent at the South Orkneys, where an observatory was built which has since been maintained by the Argentine Republic. Gough Island was biologically explored. The expedition returned home in July 1904 with large biological collections from waters down to 2,900 fathoms and voluminous hydrographical and meteorological observations. Seven volumes of Bruce’s Report on the Scientific Results of the Voyage of S.Y. ‘Scotia’, 1902-1904 contained most of the results, but lack of means prevented the completion of the series. Other results were published by the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Bruce then turned his attention to Spitzbergen, and with the help of the Prince of Monaco had small expeditions engaged in the survey of Prince Charles Foreland in 1906, 1907, and 1909. He made a vain effort in 1910-1911 to raise funds for a new Antarctic expedition which was to include a traverse of Antarctica. In 1912, 1914, 1919, and 1920 he was again in Spitzbergen, engaged in the exploration of the coal-bearing regions to which he had drawn attention in 1898. A whaling enterprise in the Seychelles occupied him in 1915-1916.
Bruce founded in Edinburgh in 1907 the Scottish oceanographical laboratory, and hoped to expand it into a great institute of oceanography comparable with that in Monaco. He undertook the whole burden of upkeep and maintained the laboratory for many years at great personal sacrifice. But failing health combined with want of means compelled him in 1920 to abandon the scheme. The library and collections were presented to various institutions in Edinburgh. He died at Edinburgh 28 October 1921. In accordance with his wishes his body was cremated and the ashes were scattered in the Southern Ocean off South Georgia on 2 April 1923. Bruce married in 1901 Jessie, daughter of Alexander Mackenzie, merchant, of Nigg, Ross-shire; they had a son and a daughter. Bruce’s contributions to scientific societies were numerous; but, with small regard for. the spectacular side of exploration, he avoided publicity and wrote little of popular interest. He received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Aberdeen University (1906) and the gold medal of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society (1904); the Patron’s medal of the Royal Geographical Society (1910), the Neill prize and medal of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1918), and the Livingstone medal of the Hispanic Society of America (1920).
[R. N. Rudmose Brown, A Naturalist at the Poles: Life and Voyages of W. S. Bruce, 1923; Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1922; Scottish Geographical Magazine, 1897-1921 passim; personal knowledge.]
R. N. R. B.