page_title: Scottish National Antarctic Expedition
section_title: Background to the expedition
hierarchical_section_title: Scottish National Antarctic Expedition / Background to the expedition
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph of William Speirs Bruce, leader of Scottish National Antarctic Expedition 1902−04
context_page_description: The Scottish National Antarctic Expedition, 1902–1904, was organised and led by William Speirs Bruce, a natural scientist and former medical student from the University of Edinburgh. Although overshadowed in terms of prestige by Robert Falcon Scott's concurrent Discovery Expedition, the SNAE completed a full programme of exploration and scientific work. Its achievements included the establishment of a manned meteorological station, the first in Antarctic territory, and the discovery of new land to the east of the Weddell Sea. Its large collection of biological and geological specimens, together with those from Bruce's earlier travels, led to the establishment of the Scottish Oceanographical Laboratory in 1906.
  Bruce had spent most of the 1890s engaged on expeditions to the Antarctic and Arctic regions, and by 1899 was Britain's most experienced polar scientist. In March of that year, he applied to join the Discovery Expedition; however, his proposal to extend that expedition's field of work into the Weddell Sea quadrant, using a second ship, was dismissed as "mischievous rivalry" by Royal Geographical Society president Sir Clements Markham.
context_section_description: During his student years—the 1880s and early 1890s—William Speirs Bruce built up his knowledge of the natural sciences and oceanography, by studying at summer courses under distinguished tutors such as Patrick Geddes and John Arthur Thomson. He also spent time working voluntarily under the oceanographer Dr John Murray, helping to classify specimens collected during the Challenger expedition. In 1892 Bruce gave up his medical studies altogether, and embarked on a voyage to the Antarctic in the whaler Balaena, as part of the 1892–1893 Dundee Whaling Expedition. On his return, he began organising an expedition of his own to South Georgia, claiming that "the taste I have had has made me ravenous", but he could not obtain funding. He then worked at a meteorological station on the summit of Ben Nevis, before joining the Jackson–Harmsworth Arctic Expedition to Franz Josef Land as a scientific assistant. Between 1897 and 1899 he made further Arctic trips, to Spitsbergen and to Novaya Zemlya, first on a private trip organised by Major Andrew Coats, later as a scientist on the Arctic survey vessel Princess Alice. This vessel was owned by Prince Albert of Monaco, a renowned oceanographer who became a friend and supporter of Bruce.
  After returning from the Arctic in 1899, Bruce sent a lengthy letter to the Royal Geographical Society in London, applying for a scientific post on the major Antarctic expedition (later to be known as the Discovery Expedition), which the RGS was then organising. His recent experiences made it "unlikely that there was any other person in the British Isles at that time better qualified". Bruce's letter, which detailed all his relevant qualifications, was acknowledged but not properly answered until more than a year had passed. By then, Bruce's ideas had progressed away from his original expectation of a junior post on the scientific staff. He now proposed a second ship for the expedition, separately financed from Scottish sources, which would work in the Weddell Sea quadrant while the main ship was based in the Ross Sea. This proposal was denounced by RGS president Sir Clements Markham as "mischievous" and, after some heated correspondence, Bruce resolved to proceed independently. In this way the idea of a distinctive Scottish National Antarctic expedition was born. Bruce was supported by the wealthy Coats family, who were prepared to give whole-hearted financial backing to a Scottish expedition under his leadership. However, as a result he had acquired the lasting enmity of Markham.
caption: William S. Bruce, SNAE expedition leader
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