An Unsung Hero: Tom Crean - Antarctic Survivor by Michael Smith

£2,000). Some members of the expedition also chipped in with personal contributions, either with direct donations or by accepting nominal sums in wages. The cavalry captain, Lawrence ‘Titus’ Oates, donated £1,000 (today: £85,000) to the enterprise which was to cost him his life.

    The ship presented a further problem, partly because the natural choice,
Discovery
, was unavailable. It had been chartered to the Hudson’s Bay Company in Canada, so Scott turned to the Dundee whaler,
Terra Nova
, which had been on the 1904 relief expedition and was fairly well known to him. It was bought with a down-payment of £5,000 (today: £425,000) and the promise of a further £7,500 when funds became available.

    Terra Nova
was eminently suitable, a veteran of the whaling fleet and the trip to McMurdo Sound some years earlier to rescue
Discovery
had proven her worth. Built in the Dundee shipyard of Alexander Stephens in 1884,
Terra Nova
was 187 ft long and registered at 749 tons. Experienced sailors said she was ‘an easy ship’.

    But while the money-raising campaign plodded along very slowly, there was no problem raising a party of men to go South. Scott set up an office in London’s Victoria Street andwas promptly deluged with applications from 8,000 willing volunteers drawn from all walks of Edwardian life. Scott’s
Discovery
expedition a few years earlier had alerted the public to Antarctica, but Shackleton’s heroic failure had aroused a more popular response and the public now wanted the South Pole to be conquered.

    Scott wanted to surround himself with tried and trusted people, including a few carefully chosen men from the
Discovery
years such as Tom Crean. He was helped by the Admiralty’s slightly unusual decision to allow him to choose his own team, although unlike
Discovery
, this was not to be a Royal Navy-dominated expedition.

    Crean, after spending the past two and a half years working alongside Scott, had been selected even before the expedition had been formally launched. From places like the Chatham barracks and in the Atlantic fleet, Scott had confirmed what he had initially found on the
Discovery
– that Crean was the type of reliable, trusted character who would be invaluable to the venture.

    Although no record exists of earlier conversations, it is safe to assume that the matter was discussed at considerable length during the years Crean and Scott spent together in uniform. The appointment was made official when he wrote to the Irishman at Chatham from the offices of the British Antarctic Expedition in Victoria Street on 23 March 1910:

    ‘Dear Crean

    I have applied for your services for the Expedition and I think the Admiralty will let you come. I expect you will be appointed in about a fortnight’s time and I shall want you at the ship to help fitting her out. Come to this office when you are appointed and I will tell you all the rest.’ 9

    Crean, now approaching his thirty-third birthday, joined the
Terra Nova
on 14 April 1910, as a Petty Officer at a salary of 15s (75p) a week. The monthly pay of £3 (today: £255 permonth) was somewhat better than the £2.5s.7d (£2.28) he received on
Discovery
and, of course, he was going back to his adopted home. He would be gone for another three years.

    Scott also signed up the two other veterans from
Discovery
, Taff Evans and chief stoker, Lashly, who with Crean were to become the expedition’s most influential figures ‘below decks’.

    Others on board from the old ship were PO Williamson and William Heald. Scott also recruited his friend, Dr Wilson, as head of the large and diverse scientific team. After
Discovery
, Wilson had undertaken a major study of a mysterious disease which was killing large numbers of grouse and by coincidence, in 1905, had visited Crean’s hometown of Anascaul on the Dingle Peninsula.

    The purpose of the expedition was primarily to reach the South Pole, but Scott was also anxious to complete a wide range of scientific