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“Strict injunctions that the dogs should not be risked”: A revised hypothesis for this anecdote and others in narratives of Scott’s last expedition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 November 2019

Karen May Open the ORCID record for Karen May [Opens in a new window]  and
George Lewis
Karen May*
Affiliation:
27 Old Gloucester St, London, WC1N 3AX, UK
George Lewis
Affiliation:
27 Old Gloucester St, London, WC1N 3AX, UK
*
Email: [email protected]
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Abstract

This article updates Karen May’s earlier 2012 hypothesis (Could Captain Scott have been saved? Revisiting Scott’s last expedition). In this revised hypothesis, Cecil Meares, not Surgeon E. L. Atkinson, originated the unsubstantiated statement that “Strict injunctions had been given by Scott that the dogs should not be risked in any way.” This hypothesis incorporates new information uncovered since 2012, specifically Meares’ misrepresentations during the Terra Nova expedition; Atkinson’s 1911 journal entries; Atkinson’s 1919 allegation that Meares had “disobeyed orders”; and Tryggve Gran’s “The Race for the South Pole between Scott and Amundsen”, a 1945/post-1945 document that appears to have been Roland Huntford’s source for anecdotes in Huntford’s 1979 Scott–Amundsen biography. The article gives a proposed chronology for how Meares’ early misrepresentations and Gran’s later misunderstandings influenced the decisions, and later presentations, of the Terra Nova expedition.

Keywords

British Antarctic Terra Nova Expedition (1910–13)Tryggve GranCecil MearesCaptain Robert Falcon ScottEdward Leicester Atkinson
Type
Research Article
Information
Polar Record , Volume 55 , Issue 6 , November 2019 , pp. 373 - 384
Copyright
© Cambridge University Press 2019

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