2-612-386 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Captain Lawrence Edward Grace Titus Oates (1880-1912), English cavalry officer with the 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons, and later an Antarctic explorer. Captain Oates (1880-1912) looked after the ponies that were used for sledge hauling during Scott's final expedition, which left London on 1 June 1910 bound for the South Pole. They reached the Pole on 17 January 1912, only to find that the Norwegian expedition under Amundsen had beaten them to their objective by a month. Delayed by blizzards, and running out of supplies, Scott and his team died at the end of March. Their bodies and diaries were found eight months later. Oates, afflicted with gangrene and frostbite, famously walked from his tent into a blizzard. His death is seen as an act of self-sacrifice, not wanting his ill health to compromise his three companions' chances of survival. John Player & Sons cigarette card series Polar Exploration, 1916.