Lawrence Oates
(vero;2025-Jan-31)
Lawrence Oates was born in 1880 in Putney and embraced a military career in 1898 when he joined the West Yorkshire Regiment. He was transferred as a junior officer in the Irish Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers in 1900 and earned merit for his feats of arm during the Second Boer War in 1901-1902. While on army duty in India and feeling bored, he applied in 1909 to join the British Antarctic Expedition, also named Terra Nova Expedition to the South Pole led by Robert Falcon Scott (1911-1913). He was selected against his expectations thanks to his experience with horses and put in charge of the nineteen ponies that Scott wanted to use for sledge hauling.
Oates was not happy with the ponies bought by Scott and from the start prophesied their inadequacy in the harsh polar conditions. He was proven right when despite his dedication and efforts all the ponies died or had to be killed. However, Oates had by then become a key member of the expedition and was selected to be part of the five man team chosen for the final march to the Pole (Robert Falcon Scott, Henry Robertson Bowers, Edward Adrian Wilson, Edgar Evans and Lawrence Oates). They reached the South Pole on 17 January 1912, only to discover the Norwegian flag left by Amundsen a month earlier on 14 December 1911. It was a tragic honour as all died on the way back.
Evans died first, a month after the team left the Pole. Lawrence died three weeks later a hero: weakened and ill, he sacrificed himself so as not to slow down the three other men. After a trying night and seeing that his condition was deteriorating further, he left the tent on the morning of his 32nd birthday on 17 March 1912, pronouncing these words that have become historic:
I am just going outside and may be some time. His body was never found.
Unfortunately, the three remaining men died 12 days later, halted by a fierce blizzard which prevented them to continue their march to a depot 11 miles further south where they would have found food. Captain Scott's last diary entry dated 29 March 1912, the presumed date of their deaths, ends with these words:
Every day we have been ready to start for our depot 11 miles away, but outside the door of the tent it remains a scene of whirling drift. I do not think we can hope for any better things now. We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far. It seems a pity but I do not think I can write more. R. Scott. Last entry. For God's sake look after our people.
You can also read this article of the Daily Mail written in 2012 for the centenary celebrations of Scott's expedition and Lawrence's role in it.
Go back to Frank Oates and Gilbert White House, go on to Netley and Titchfield Abbeys or go up to Hampshire
$ updated from: Basingstoke and Around.htxt Mon 03 Mar 2025 16:11:13 trvl2 — Copyright © 2025 Vero and Thomas Lauer unless otherwise stated | All rights reserved $