Saturday, 19 February 1910

Scott

A lack of funds plagued the expedition, with so much of its budget dependent on public donations. Many people couldn't see the point of going to the Antarctic at such expense. "I call it scientific cheek to come along when there are so many thousands of unemployed and ask £50,000 for such a purpose," ran one letter in the Sussex News. [1]

Teddy Evans, admirably suited to what he called "beating up funds", found himself travelling up and down Britain wheedling audiences. "It's no good talking to business men about magnetism, geology, meteorology or any of that scientific stuff," he decided. [2] "Scott, himself, when he could be spared from the Admiralty, worked Newcastle, Liverpool, and the North, whilst both of us did what we could in London.... It was an anxious time for Scott." [3]

By the spring of 1910, Scott and Evans had collected the first £10,000, and the then-Liberal government granted another £20,000.


Notes:

[1] Sussex News, 19 February, 1910, quoted by Diana Preston in A First Rate Tragedy (Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1998, c1997), p.116.
[2] E.R.G.R. Evans, in Reginald Pound's Scott of the Antarctic (1968), quoted by Ranulph Fiennes in Race to the Pole (New York : Hyperion, c2004), p.147.
[3] E.R.G.R. Evans, South with Scott, quoted by Diana Preston in A First Rate Tragedy (Boston : Houghton Mifflin, 1998, c1997), p.116.