Appeal to save ‘lost’ Scott negatives – can you help?

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The Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge has launched an appeal to save Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s ‘lost’ polar negatives. A last minute stay of execution means it now has until 25 March to save the negatives for the UK.

Watch Ranulph Fiennes has made an appeal on video (view above) appeal on YouTube to find out more.

Owing to the overwhelming level of public support and assistance from public bodies and charities, The Scott Polar Research Institute has already raised a fifth of the purchase price of £275,000 in just six weeks. Following careful negotiation, the vendors have agreed to extend the original deadline for the sale of these historic images. The Institute now has until 25 March to raise the necessary funds to purchase Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s rediscovered photographic negatives, taken in 1911 on the British Antarctic Expedition, for its Polar Museum.

As part of the Institute’s redoubling of efforts to secure the negatives, it has today launched a video of Britain's greatest living explorer, Sir Ranulph Fiennes, giving his full support to the appeal and explaining the importance of preserving the negatives for the nation. Fiennes stresses the uniqueness of the negatives and their importance both to the national heritage and to research.

In the video, Sir Ranulph Fiennes says:
The negatives of Scott’s lost photographs are of major significance to the national heritage. Scott’s attainment of the South Pole and his subsequent death captured the public imagination on its discovery in 1913 and continues to exercise an extraordinary fascination. The negatives are a key component of the expedition’s material legacy as an object and as a collection in themselves. Although the Scott Polar Research Institute holds prints of a number of these photographs, acquiring the negatives is very important. They take us right back to the point of origin, a fact made all the more exciting given that the Institute also holds the camera on which they were taken. Unlike a print, of which any number can be made, the negatives are unique and would be a huge asset to the Institute.

The extension to the deadline gives time to approach further funding bodies and private donors. The generosity of the public is vital in the race to ensure that the negatives remain available to all in perpetuity, for research and exhibition.

Julian Dowdeswell, Director of the Scott Polar Research Institute, said:

There has been an extraordinarily generous response to the appeal, proving how important Scott remains in the national imagination. Every donation, however small, brings us closer to reaching our goal of £275,000.

The Polar Museum needs to find a further £200,000 in the next three weeks to avoid the prospect of the 113 photographic negatives being sold at auction.

The negatives are a record of Scott’s earliest attempts – under the guidance of expedition photographer Herbert Ponting – through to his unparalleled images of his team on the Southern Journey. The force, control and beauty of his portraits and landscapes number them among some of the finest early images of the Antarctic.

The Polar Museum is already home to the remaining prints of Scott's photographs, Herbert Ponting’s glass plate negatives and Ponting’s presentation album from the same expedition. Added to that are the prints and albums of all the other expedition members equipped with a camera. Together, they form the most comprehensive photographic record of the expedition held anywhere in the world.

Anyone able to make a donation can do so here: http://bit.ly/1nWQz0k
or on the Polar Research Institute's website

For more information, please email University of Cambridge Communications Office or call 01223 332300.

Cheques, made payable to the University of Cambridge, can be sent to Save Scott’s Negatives, The Polar Museum, Scott Polar Research Institute, Lensfield Road, Cambridge, CB2 1ER

Captain Scott and his legacy

The Scott Polar Research Institute is a sub-department of the University of Cambridge. It was founded in 1920 as the national memorial to Captain Scott and the Polar party. The Institute has been an international centre for polar explorers, scholars and enthusiasts ever since. From rigorous scientific enquiry into the nature of climate change to protecting our historic polar heritage, the Scott Polar Research Institute has remained at the vanguard of polar work for more than 85 years.

Captain Robert Falcon Scott (1868-1912) is probably Britain's most famous Antarctic explorer and better known for his contributions to the literature of exploration than as a photographer. Born in Plymouth, he joined the Royal Navy as a cadet at the age of thirteen. Scott led his second expedition to the Antarctic in 1910. He took a strong scientific team, both naval and civilian, that included several companions from his previous expedition. Aware of the rival bid of the Norwegian explorer, Roald Amundsen, who was equipped with excellent dog teams, Scott started out for the Pole in late October 1911. With the aid of experimental motor tractors, dog teams and ponies, he followed his previous route across the Ross Ice Shelf before resorting to man-hauling up the Beardmore Glacier along a route pioneered by Sir Ernest Shackleton in 1908-09.

A five-man polar party successfully traversed the plateau, reaching the Pole on 17 January 1912, to find that Amundsen had reached the South Pole on 14 December 1911. On the return journey, the weakened party faced exceptionally unfavourable weather and sledging conditions. Edgar Evans was the first to die, near the foot of the Beardmore Glacier. Lawrence Oates followed on 16 March, when he famously left the tent in a blizzard for the good of the party. Scott himself died with Henry Bowers and Edward Wilson in late March 1912, laid up by a blizzard 11 miles short of One Ton Depot. He was 44 years old. During these last days in the tent, Scott kept up his journal, wrote 12 letters to friends, family, and next of kin and left a message for the public explaining his reasons for the failure of the expedition.