95p     William Speirs Bruce

 The sepia portrait of W S Bruce continues the theme of this series of stamps.

 William Speirs Bruce was born in 1867. Although he qualified as a medical doctor he was a naturalist and a scientist at heart and it was these interests he cultivated during his lifetime.  He visited the Southern Ocean and the northern parts of the Antarctic Peninsula as a scientific member of the Scottish Whaling expedition 1892-93.  With a growing love of the science of oceanography he resolved to return to the Weddell Sea area, turning down a chance of going on Scott's first Antarctic expedition to lead his own in 1902

 Love of his country was equal to that for his science and he wanted Scotland to be represented among the several Antarctic expeditions of the time.  Thus with public subscription and much financial support from the Coats brothers of Paisley, he assembled an impressive group of scientists and seaman to carry out the first systematic oceanographic work in the Weddell Sea, to survey the South Orkney Islands and study their wildlife and carry out meteorological observations of the area.

 The achievements of the Scotia expedition were considerable and enduring. Besides establishing the first Antarctic meteorological station, which has been in continuous operation ever since, the expedition added substantially to the limits of the Antarctic continent, discovering new land in 74°S.  It also provided significant data to add to the known bathymetry of the Weddell Sea, and to the Southern Ocean between the Falkland Islands and the South Orkney Islands, now known as the Scotia Sea.

 William Bruce was a quiet private man with a scientific passion.  After the expedition and largely with his own money, he set up the Scottish Oceanographic Laboratory.  Later he became an expert on the island of Spitsbergen.  Bruce died in 1921 after a long illness and his ashes were scattered in the waters of Antarctica.

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