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Path: Photos > England > South East England > Hampshire > Gilbert White's House and the Oates Collection > Lawrence Oates
Tags: UK  England  Hampshire  Museum

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.

Captain Lawrence Edward Grace Oates during the Terra Nova Expedition of 1911-1913; photo of a poster in the museum. The original photo was taken by Herbert Ponting, expedition photographer and cinematographer for Scott's Terra Nova Expedition.
Antarctic expedition map showing the polar journeys of the Scott's Terra Nova expedition (green) and Amundsen's expedition (red) to reach the South Pole. Map by Shakki, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Lawrence with his ponies. Photo by Herbert Ponting, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. The Terra Nova in the ice. Photo of a poster in the museum. Model of the Terra Nova. Detail of a letter written by Lawrence Oates on the Expedition's paper. Photo of a poster in the museum showing part of the team in their winter quarters in the Cape Evans hut. Lawrence is the one in the middle. A bar of chocolate recovered from one of the depots. Wooden box for Colman's Mustard. Oates (far right) at the South Pole on 18 January 1912 as part of the Terra Nova Expedition. From left to right: Edward Wilson, Henry Bowers (the team's photograph, seated), Edgar Evans (seated), Robert Scott and Lawrence Oates. Photo by Henry Bowers (1883—1912), Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. On 12 November 1912 a search party found the tent containing the frozen bodies of Scott, Wilson and Bowers, 11 miles (18 km) south of One Ton Depot. They found Scott's diaries and were able to retrace their hardships and tragic end by reading the relevant parts. After diaries, photos, effects and records had been collected, the tent was collapsed over the bodies and a cairn of snow erected, topped by a cross fashioned from some skis. The party searched further south for Oates' body, but found only his sleeping bag. On 15 November, they raised a cairn near to where they believed he had died. Photo of documents kept in the museum. April 1913: back in the UK, Lawrence's mother had not yet heard the tragic news. This photo shows a bill for clothes she had bought for her son in preparation of his return. Lawrence's uniform in the Irish Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, with the buttons featuring the regiment's badge.


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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 $