1910-1913 Captain Scott British Antarctic Expedition - A fou...

Hammer

£19,000

1910-1913 Captain Scott British Antarctic Expedition - A four page letter from Winterquarters, Cape Evans, McMurdo Sound, dated January 17 1911, written by Edward Wilson, physician and the chief of scientific staff to his friend Alfred (or Alford) Usher Soord (artist), complete with conforming British Antarctic Expedition envelope, with New Zealand 1d stamp cancelled Lyttelton August? 11. There is a further indistinct cancel to the expedition crest on the reverse. 
Excerpts from the letter read as follows - 
'My Dear Soord, No bolt from the blue, I am quite sure, will be more of a surprise to you than this line from the Antarctic. Here we are at last with our camp all made good, our hut built on shore, our ponies, dogs, motors and stores all landed. And in a week we start off depot laying. In April we return & winter during the dark & then when the light returns in October, off we go for the pole..'
He goes on to say that 'You would scorn the idea of painting me now' and 'I hear you have been painting some other people in Cheltenham'.
This follows on from an earlier encounter between the two friends, when Alfred Soord painted Ted Wilson's portrait before he set off on the Antarctic Expedition. Enclosed with the above letter is another written by Ted Wilson to Alfred Soord, dated May.4.10, in which he discusses the portrait and mentions that 'we hope you will accept the enclosed cheque £40, as an indication of our complete satisfaction. We are all wishing it could be a much bigger sum, for it would then be more commensurate with our appreciation for the work that you have put into the portrait. But you know we are all still waiting for our ships to come in'...
Another letter enclosed in this lot is later, on New Zealand Shipping Company Ltd headed note paper, and is hand-written to Alfred Soord by Edward Wilson's widow, Diana Wilson, further titled RMS Remuera - Monte Video and is dated March 25.1913.
'Dear Mr Soord, I am so glad you wrote to me. I want to tell you that in my husband's prayers, which he sent me from the Antarctic after he had landed there in 1910........ My prayers for others always to include the following .... Soord for his kindness of heart'.....

Captain Scott's Terra Nova expedition party reached the South Pole on 17th January 1912, where they found that Roald Amundsen's Norwegian team had reached it before them, 34 days earlier.
Captain Scott's expedition party of five members, including Edward Wilson, did not survive the return journey from the pole.

Provenance - Consigned to auction sale by a descendant of Alfred (Alford) Soord.