RELICS OF SCOTT EXPEDITION

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25609, 25 September 1948, Page 2

RELICS OF SCOTT EXPEDITION

DISPLAY AT MUSEUM Personal relics of Captain Robert Falcon Scott which, have been, presented to the Canterbury Museum by Mr PetQr Scott, the son of the famous explorer, form one of the new exhibits which will be on display when the museum reopens on Monday. Items of Captain Scott’s full dress naval uniform, including his cocked hat, sword, sword belt, epaulettes and shoulder flashes are shown. The display also includes two of his decorations. the C.V.O. (Commander of the Royal Victorian Order) and the British Antarctic Medal 1902-1904, inscribed “R. F. Scott, Commander, Discovery.”

Other articles which were used on one or both of the Antarctic Expeditions of Captain Scott, and which have been presented or lent to the museum, also form part of the display. These include a Nansen cooker; the White Ensign from the Terra Nova, Captain Scott’s only shin on his second expedition in 1910-1912; sealskin snow boots, and a canvas wallet in which Captain Scott carried his diary while sledging. Sledges used by Shackleton, Scott, and Amundsen on their polar expeditions are included in the display. They were presented to the museum by the late Sir Joseph Kinsey, who was a close friend of Captain Scott and his official representative while he was in the Antarctic.

Onfe of the most interesting articles in the collection is the facsimile of the letter which Captain Scott wrote to Sir Joseph Kinsey five days before he is presumed to have died. The facsimile has been lent to the museum by Mrs W. A. Moore, a daughter of Sir Joseph Kinsey. Mrs Moore has also lent a number of lithographic reproductions of water colours made by Dr. E. A. Wilson during Scott’s last expedition. These form a background to a sledge party depicting the method of transport in the Antarctic. The group was modelled from an actual photograph taken on the expedition. “Because of the deplorable lack of space these valuable exhibits can be shown only occasionally, and then stored away,” said the director of the museum (Mr R. S. Duff).