A marked Testament presented to Captain L.E.G. Oates on the departure of Scott's fatal second expedition to the South Pole, the front free endpaper inscribed 'Capt. L.E.G. Oates/on his leaving New Zealand/Antarctic Expedition/"Terra Nova"/Nov.1910/with all good wishes/H.R. Falconer/(Seamen's Missionary)/Dunedin/John 3.16', the original maroon gilt stamped on upper cover 'ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION/"TERRA NOVA"/1910'

The Testament is believed in the Oates family to have been carried by Oates with him to the South Pole and retrieved with his other effects by the search party which found Scott's tent on 12 November 1912: 'The search party did not move the bodies, but after removing the notebooks, last letters and so on, simply took the bamboos of the tent away, and the tent itself covered them.' (S. Limb and P. Cordingley, Captain Oates, Soldier and Explorer, London, 1982, p. 165).

Falconer, who presented the Testament to Oates in Dunedin, is probably the parson mentioned in Oates' own correspondence: 'I had a job helping the ship's carpenter to refit the cross tress on the foremast. It was rather amusing as a parson came up belonging to the Missions to Seamen. He heard I was a soldier and came up to me. He said he had been a private soldier and had raised himself to a parson and it was sad that I who had been a captain of a Cavalry Regiment should have come down to be carpenter's mate. I think someone had been pulling his leg.' (Oates quoted in S. Limb and P. Cordingley, op. cit., p. 102).

Given the oncoming tragedy, Falconer's concluding reference to John 3.16 is poignant ('For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life').