Scott expedition negatives staying in UK

NEGATIVES TAKEN by Captain Rober t Falcon Scott on his illfated polar expedition have been saved for the nation after a major fundraising campaign.

The Polar Museum at the Scott Polar Research Institute ( SPRI) in Cambridge had to raise £275,000 by the end of this month to avoid the prospect of the 113 negatives being sold at auction.

The negatives are described as an “extraordinary visual record” of Scott’s famous 1912 Terra Nova Expedition in which he and his four companions died on their return from being beaten to the South Pole by Norwegian Roald Amundsen.

Ye s t e r d a y , the institute announced it had successfully reached its target after being awarded a grant of £233,450 from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF), in addition to funds already raised through a public appeal spearheaded by Sir Ranulph Fiennes.

Sir Ranulph said: “Scott’s negatives can now take their rightful place in Cambridge alongside the camera on which they were taken, as well as the remaining Scott and Herber t Ponting prints — all of which speak so powerfully to us of the courage and sacrifice of those on the British Antarctic Expedition.

“The negatives have been recently rediscovered, having been thought lost.

“If the Scott Polar Research Institute had not been successful then there was every chance that they would have been sold abroad and into a private collection.”