Doomed 1912 expedition to Antarctica that claimed lives of five men 'helped open world's eyes to importance of the continent'
There was ice in St Paul's Cathedral at a service marking the centenary of Captain Robert Falcon Scott's doomed attempt to conquer the South Pole, on a day so unseasonably hot that women wore summer frocks and the many men in full military dress mopped discreetly at their brows.
The chill came from the last message of Scott's journal, written on 29 March 1912 as the Antarctic gales shrieked outside the tent that he knew would become his tomb, and the tomb of Henry Bowers and Edward Wilson: "These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale".
Sir David Attenborough – with a catch in his voice – read the lines from the journal, and also from the book of Job, set to a spine-shivering score from composer Judith Bingham, commissioned for the service: "Out of whose womb came the ice? And the hoary frost of heaven, who hath gendered it? The storms of winter strike and the breath of God freezes streams and rivers."
Further lines from the same biblical verses – "we seek the secrets of the earth … but find the hidden face of God" – became the motto of the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, founded in part by public subscriptions that poured in when the world learned months later of the deaths and Scott's last desperate plea: "For God's sake, look after our people."
St Paul's was filled with 2,000 enthusiasts for polar science and history: academics, politicians, ambassadors, Princess Anne, foreign secretary William Hague, and the first sea lord Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope. The dignitaries were joined by descendants of survivors and the men who died – Scott, Bowers and Wilson on 29 March 1912, Edgar Evans who died six weeks earlier, and Lawrence Oates, who walked out into the snow on 16 March declaring that he was "just going outside and may be some time".
The congregation was repeatedly reminded how the expedition's sacrifice was not in vain, but has had a lasting legacy. The prime minister, David Cameron, sent a message saying they had helped open the world's eyes to the global importance of Antarctica.
"I am sure Scott and his companions would be as proud as I am that British scientists are still at the cutting edge of Antarctic research; from the discovery of the ozone hole in 1985, to vital studies of the Antarctic ice-shelf, through to the Lake Ellsworth research project this year."
The cathedral was also the scene of the first memorial service in February 1913, attended by the King. Contemporary accounts say 10,000 people who couldn't get in filled the streets outside — a scene preserved in rare archive film restored by the British Film Institute and uploaded to YouTube to mark the centenary.
The Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, observed in his sermon that the glorious sunshine made a poignant contrast to the conditions Scott faced. When Scott wrote the last lines of "his immortal journal", he said, "it appeared to be the end, but it proved to be the beginning of what we celebrate today".
"A hundred years ago Antarctica was the last great unknown wilderness, and now it is the largest laboratory in the world" he said. "The example of Scott and his team helped inspire the Antarctic treaty, which guaranteed the integrity of the continent as a place of peace and scientific research, as far as possible uncontaminated by the rubbish we have made of so much of the rest of the natural world."
Chartres said the three men, whose bodies were recovered eight months later, still locked in the ice under the tent and a cairn of snow, "wait like some latter day Arthur and his knights, in the heart of the frozen continent".
"Wilson and Bowers were found in the attitude of sleep," he recalled, "it was clear that Scott had died later. He had thrown back the flaps of his sleeping bag, and opened his coat, the little wallet containing the notebooks was under his shoulders, and his arm was flung across Wilson."
A wreath of laurel and rosemary was laid below the wall memorial to the dead explorers by descendants, including Scott's grandchildren Falcon and Dafila, who recently travelled to Antarctica as artist-in-residence on the Royal Navy ocean survey ship HMS Scott.
Chartres said Antarctica was a crucial place for climate science, which was largely founded on scientific observations made by Scott's expedition. For the next week the cathedral will hold striking evidence for climate change in an art installation made by Julian Broke-Evans.
With other family members he placed ice tubes and plastic pipes in the Norwegian Arctic, which were intended to bring the sight and sound of polar regions live to viewers by video link. However the live link has had to be replaced with recordings, and the microphones are picking up only the sound of dripping water: the landscape, blanketed in snow and ice only a few weeks ago, is now mud and rock.