Adélie penguin rookery, Graptolite Isle, 1903

Speirs Bruce’s Scotish National Antarctic Expedition lasted for two years. It has been hailed as laying the ground work for modern climate change research because he not only brought back a large collection of specimens, but also undertook extensive and very accurate observations. The expedition also resulted in a fine collection of photographs, now held in Glasgow University. Taken mostly by Bruce himself, the most celebrated picture in the collection is The Piper and the Penguin.

Speirs Bruce was a first class leader, losing no member of his crew, avoiding

being trapped in the ice and sharing everything with his companions.

Aſter his return set up the Scotish Oceanographical Laboratory in Nicolson Street, Edinburgh, with the ambition that it should in time become a national institution. It was opened by Prince Albert of Monaco in 1906. But the outbreak of the First World War meant that funding plans failed. Eventually the collection

In 1899 he applied to join what was called the National Antarctic Expedition but fell out with the President of the Royal Geographical Society in London, Sir Clements Markham, over his offer to secure funding for a second ship which he described - to Markham’s fury - as the “Scottish Expedition.”

88 August 2015

Laboratory on the Scotia