Cylchgronau Cymru

Scott of the Antarctic and Cardiff Anthony M. Johnson Both the memoirs of participants in the ill-fated Scott Expedition to the South Pole known officially as the British Antarctic Expedition (1910) and the succession of accounts of the enterprise published over the past seventy years have paid scant attention to the role of Cardiff in the affair beyond recording the fact that the Expedition departed the United Kingdom from the city aboard the Terra Nova on 15 June 1910. Even the most recent, most exhaustive, and cer- tainly the most controversial study of Scott pays no regard to the crucial role played by Cardiff in support of the enterprisetl]. On the face of things Cardiff was an unusual choice as the port of departure for it was not a place traditionally associated with voyages of exploration and discovery and certainly no previous expedition had used Cardiff as its base port. Indeed, the Cardiff connexion with the Scott Expedition was largely fortuitous. Once, however, the opportunity to play a central role in the Expedition had presented itself, over the months of preparation there developed a close com- mitment by the leading citizens of Cardiff to ensure its success such that the business community invested money and resources to an extent quite unmatched by any other town or group of backers in the United Kingdom. So important were their efforts that it can be argued that without Cardiff's support the Scott Expedition might never have left Britain on time, let alone have achieved the fame and fascination which its tragic failure continues to arouse. The genesis of the Cardiff connexion with the Scott Expedition derived from an attempt by the man who became Scott's second-in- command, Lt. E.G.R.G. Evans, Evans of 'the Broke', later Admiral Lord Mountevans, to organise his own expedition to the Antarctic, independent of, and quite unknown, to Scott. Evans's enthusiasm for polar exploration had been fuelled by his experiences as commander of two relief expeditions to the Antarctic in the second of which he rescued Scott and his companions when in