Scott of the Antarctic’s memorabilia lands at Cardiff auction house

A 1910 signed dinner menu card to commemorate the British Antartic Expedition and the departure of the Terra Nova from Cardiff will be up for auction next month at Rogers Jones’ saleroom.

On Monday 13th June, 1910, at 6.30pm sharp, the Cardiff business community were sitting down to a dinner served at the Royal Hotel, Cardiff, with Captain Scott and his officers present. 

It was a chance for  the commercial community in the capital to celebrate and show their support for the upcoming voyage and expedition to the South Pole on board the Terra Nova.

Two days after this dinner, a large excited crowd cheered the Terra Nova as she departed Roath Basin in Cardiff’s ‘Tiger Bay’ with the doomed British Antarctic Expedition starting its race for the South Pole.

Welsh support

The Terra Nova had arrived in Cardiff five days earlier to finish preparations for the voyage and to take on fuel. 300 tons of Crown Patent Fuel, 100 tons of steam coal and 500 gallons of engine and lamp oil were donated by Welsh coal companies.

All the cooking utensils were given by the Welsh Tin Plate Company of Llanelli and even Scott’s sleeping bag was bought with funds raised by the County School in Cardigan.

In addition to support in kind, a further £2,500 was raised in Cardiff, more than from any other city.

The dinner at the Royal Hotel in St Mary’s Street, Cardiff, will have been as much a thank you to the business people of the city as it was a commemoration for the imminent departure. The Cardiff business community played a crucial role in fund-raising and raising sponsorship and in the provision of dock facilities.

In recognition of the Welsh support for the expedition, Cardiff was designated the Terra Nova‘s home port and it was to Bute Dock that she returned at the end of the expedition on 14 June 1913.

Welsh crew

In June 1909, William Davies, editor of the Western Mail, met with the young naval officer Lieutenant E.R.G.R. Evans, who was planning his own Antarctic expedition. Davies was very keen on supporting what he initially saw as a Welsh National Antarctic Expedition — Evans’s grandfather was probably from Cardiff — and thought that there would be support for such a project from Cardiff businesses.

Soon afterwards, Evans learned of Scott’s planned expedition and joined him as second-in-command, bringing with him the support of the editor of the Western Mail and the prospect of Welsh sponsorship.

Davies was instrumental not only in rallying business and public support in Wales for Scott’s expedition, but in persuading his compatriot, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George, to provide a government grant of £20,000.

Arguably, without the influence of Davies, the support of the Western Mail and the Welsh ship-owners, Scott’s expedition would not have left in time to reach the Pole in 1912.

There was another Evans in the Terra Nova‘s crew – Petty Officer Edgar Evans from Rhossili, Gower. He had been to Antarctica with Scott on his Discovery expedition of 1901-4, and was chosen by Scott to be a member of his polar party on the 1910-12 expedition. Evans was the first to die on the return march from the South Pole.

Cardiff links

Captain Scott’s links with Cardiff are commemorated by the lighthouse erected in 1915 in Roath Park Lake and the bronze plaque of 1916 on the staircase in City Hall. In June 2003 a commemorative sculpture was unveiled in Cardiff Bay.

The farewell dinner was hosted within the ‘Alexandra Room’ of the Royal Hotel in Cardiff, and a memorial dinner for Captain Scott was held at the hotel three years later. The room is now named the ‘Captain Scott Room’ in his honour and an annual dinner of commemoration is held by the Captain Scott Society on the anniversary of his farewell meal.

Signed menu card

The Menu card has reached the auction through a descendant of Colonel Joseph Edward Crawshay Partridge who would have been in attendance at the dinner, and bears his signature.

The cover is printed with ‘Complimentary Dinner, Capt. Scott CVO RN and officers of the ‘Terra Nova’. To be held at the Royal Hotel on Monday 13th June, 1910 at 6.30pm sharp, given by members of the commercial community of Cardiff, Chairman: Trevor S Jones, President of the Cardiff Chamber of Commerce’. 

The front is signed by Captain Scott and fellow expedition crew members including Teddy Evans, Edgar Evans, Herbert Ponting, Robert Forde and more.

It’s been estimated to sell between £3000 and £4000 at Rogers Jones’ Club House auction at the Cardiff Saleroom on November 6 2024.

For more information on The Club House Sale, visit www.rogersjones.co.uk