Descendants gather at cathedral for centenary memorial service to explorers who died on return journey from South Pole
A century after Captain Robert Falcon Scott set down in his journal some of the most famous words in the history of polar exploration – "It seems a pity but I do not think I can write more" – descendants of his team will gather on Thursday at St Paul's Cathedral, to commemorate their lives and the doomed mission.
The service includes contributions from the bishop of London, Princess Anne and Sir David Attenborough who will read extracts from the last diary entry, written on 29 March 1912, in impeccably neat handwriting when Scott's companions were already dead or dying and he knew his own end was imminent.
Descendants meeting again in the cathedral include Scott's granddaughter Dafila, who recently travelled to Antarctica as artist in residence on the Royal Navy ocean survey ship HMS Scott; polar historian David Wilson, who is the great-nephew of Edward Wilson, the naturalist and expedition artist; and Julian Broke-Evans, composer and grandson of Scott's second in command, Teddy Evans, who has created an art installation linking St Paul's live to the Antarctic where his columns of ice capture the sound of the wind blowing across the frozen wasteland.
St Paul's was also the scene of the original national memorial service, held in February 1913, almost a year after Scott's death. The bodies were found by a search party in November 1912 and still lie under a snow cairn, locked in the ice, inside the tent which was collapsed on top of them.
News of the explorers' deaths prompted considerable mourning and an appeal for funds to provide for their dependants raised so much that enough was left over to found the Scott Polar Institute in Cambridge. The memorial service was such a national event that London Underground issued a poster to advise the crowds how to get to St Paul's.
The explorers had reached the South Pole on 17 January, after passing one of Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen's black flags and realising that they had been beaten. Scott wrote: "Great God! This is an awful place, and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority."