THIS IS THE DIARY JUNCTION - DATA AND LINKS FOR OVER 500 HISTORICAL AND LITERARY DIARISTS
PLEASE TAKE A MOMENT ALSO TO LOOK AT KIP FENN, A MAJOR NOVEL ABOUT THE 21st CENTURY
- freely available on this site
Scott, Robert Falcon ___ 1868-1912
___ British ___ explorer
BIOGRAPHICAL SUMMARY
Scott was born near Devonport,
Devon, into a family with strong naval traditions. He was educated locally,
but turned to the navy in 1880, when only 13. On completion of his training
in 1882, he became a midshipman on HMS Boadicea. Six years later, he rose
to the rank of sub-lieutenant on HMS Spider and then, in 1989, to lieutenant.
Later, he joined the flagship of the Channel Squadron, HMS Majestic, and
was appointed as lieutenant for torpedoes. However, his career took a turn
in 1901 when the Royal Geographical Society asked him to command a National
Antarctic Expedition. As well as undertaking biological, meteorological
and geological studies, the expedition charted approximately 1,200 miles
of coastline. On his return to England in 1904, Scott was promoted to captain,
and, a year later, made commander of the Royal Victorian Order. In 1906,
he returned to a sea-going naval position on HMS Victorious, and then served
successively on HMS Albemarle and HMS Bulwark. In 1908, he married Kathleen
Bruce. They had one son in 1910. In 1909, Scott was appointed Naval Secretary
to the Second Sea Lord. A year later he set off on his second major expedition,
this time with the intention of reaching the South Pole. But he and his
team were delayed by bad weather, and, as is well known, Roald Amundsen,
using dogs and with better weather, reached the pole first. On the return
journey, Scott and all the members of his team were unable to journey through
the blizzards and the cold and perished in February-March 1912. The bodies,
along with diaries and important geologicals sample, were discovered eight
months later.
One
biography link
DIARY DATES, CONTENT DESCRIPTORS
1910-1912 ___ exploration geology
weather
WEB TEXT LINKS
a
few extracts
a
few other extracts
ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT LINKS
Cambridge
University: Scott Polar Research Institute
Royal Geographical Society ___ 1911 (also some at British Library)
SOME PUBLISHED TITLES
The Diaries of Captain Robert Scott:
A Record of the Second Antartic Expedition 1910-1912
May 2005
THIS IS THE DIARY JUNCTION - DATA AND LINKS FOR OVER 500 HISTORICAL AND LITERARY DIARISTS
Please
email if you have any corrections, additions or comments. |
IMPORTANT NOTES AND CAUTIONS:
1) The first line of basic information
may be incomplete in several ways: some historical figures have different
names (titles, pen-names); their birth and death dates may be unknown or
uncertain (g - guess, c - circa); similarly, their occupations may be unknown,
or they may have had other jobs; and, for early diarists, I've used 'British'
a bit too freely. 2) The biographical summary may not be accurate. It was
compiled quickly from various sources, mostly on the internet, and the facts
were not checked anywhere near as rigorously as they would have been if
they'd been intended for publication in a printed form. 3) The journal dates
and descriptors (which are in no particular order) must be treated with
caution: since I have not examined the diaries myself, the descriptors are
only guesses based on bibliographies, anthologies and internet biographies.
4) For the biography and etext links, I have ignored any sites with charges,
and I have avoided, wherever possible, those with pop-ups or too much advertising.
I have limited myself to providing three etext links where there is some
variety between them. 5) For the original manuscript links, I have limited
myself to providing a maximum of two (although, for a few diarists, their
original diaries are held in more than two places). 6) I have provided the
titles - chosen randomly - for up to three printed editions of the diaries. |