SCOTT'S BRITISH ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION, 1910-1913 (Lots 141-148)
LAWRENCE EDWARD GRACE OATES (1880-1912)
Details
LAWRENCE EDWARD GRACE OATES (1880-1912)
Autograph letter signed ('L.E.G. Oates') to his mother, S.Y. Terra Nova, Cardiff, 'Friday', [10 June 1910], describing the arrival of the ship at Cardiff that morning. 'The Mayor and his crowd came on board and I never saw such a mob they are Labour socialists we are booked for dinners, smoking concerts, music halls every night and people running about with invitations to stay with them in their hands'; saying that they are 'in a frightful state of ordered confusion', and that 'the only gentleman I have seen come aboard yet is a telephone operator', 2 pages, 8vo, on lined paper, integral blank leaf, autograph envelope addressed to Mrs Oates at Colwyn Bay.
The Terra Nova had left her mooring on the Thames on 1 June, and after taking part in a naval send-off from the Home Fleet in Portland Harbour, called in to Cardiff to take on a final load of coal. Scott stayed behind to raise funds (he joined the ship at Simonstown) and the Terra Nova finally sailed for the South on June 15th (Tryggve Gran wrote later 'Neither before or since in time of peace have I heard such an uproar as that which made the air tremble as Terra Nova glided out through the docks').
Captain 'Titus' Oates, unhappy with the army, paid £1000 to join Scott's second Antarctic expedition, on which he was given responsibility for the dogs and ponies. He quickly impressed Scott and was selected as one of the ill-fated Pole party. The story of Oates' death is the best known in the annals of polar exploration. His body has never been found, but the message on the cairn erected near where he disappeared begins 'Hereabouts died a very gallant gentleman...'.
Autograph letter signed ('L.E.G. Oates') to his mother, S.Y. Terra Nova, Cardiff, 'Friday', [10 June 1910], describing the arrival of the ship at Cardiff that morning. 'The Mayor and his crowd came on board and I never saw such a mob they are Labour socialists we are booked for dinners, smoking concerts, music halls every night and people running about with invitations to stay with them in their hands'; saying that they are 'in a frightful state of ordered confusion', and that 'the only gentleman I have seen come aboard yet is a telephone operator', 2 pages, 8vo, on lined paper, integral blank leaf, autograph envelope addressed to Mrs Oates at Colwyn Bay.
The Terra Nova had left her mooring on the Thames on 1 June, and after taking part in a naval send-off from the Home Fleet in Portland Harbour, called in to Cardiff to take on a final load of coal. Scott stayed behind to raise funds (he joined the ship at Simonstown) and the Terra Nova finally sailed for the South on June 15th (Tryggve Gran wrote later 'Neither before or since in time of peace have I heard such an uproar as that which made the air tremble as Terra Nova glided out through the docks').
Captain 'Titus' Oates, unhappy with the army, paid £1000 to join Scott's second Antarctic expedition, on which he was given responsibility for the dogs and ponies. He quickly impressed Scott and was selected as one of the ill-fated Pole party. The story of Oates' death is the best known in the annals of polar exploration. His body has never been found, but the message on the cairn erected near where he disappeared begins 'Hereabouts died a very gallant gentleman...'.