"This statue of Captain Robert Falcon Scott commemorating his ill-fated second expedition to the South Pole, stands at the western end of The Porter’s Garden of Portsmouth Dockyard, just inside the main entrance.
Sculpted by his widow, Lady Kathleen in 1915, the Grade II listed bronze statue of Captain Scott with one of his faithful dogs, looks out across the harbour. Research relates that the statue came to Portsmouth following its commission by the then Commanding Officer of HMS Vernon as a tribute to the great explorer with all the ship’s officers helping to fund the project. Below his feet is inscribed this incredibly moving extract taken from his journal in the South Pole:
“The gale is howling about us, we are weak, writing is difficult but for my own sake I do not regret this journey, which has shown that Englishmen can endure hardships, help one another and meet death with as great a fortitude as ever in the past. We took risks, we knew we took them. Things have come out against us and therefore we have no cause for complaint but bow to the will of providence determined to do our best to the end.” "
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"Captain Robert Falcon Scott, CVO, RN (6 June 1868 – 29 March 1912) was an English Royal Navy officer and explorer who led two expeditions to the Antarctic regions: the Discovery Expedition, 1901–04, and the ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition, 1910–13. On the first expedition, he set a new southern record by marching to latitude 82°S and discovered the Polar Plateau, on which the South Pole is located. During the second venture, Scott led a party of five which reached the South Pole on 17 January 1912, only to find that they had been preceded by Roald Amundsen's Norwegian expedition. On their return journey, Scott's party discovered plant fossils, proving Antarctica was once forested and joined to other continents. At a distance of 150 miles from their base camp and 11 miles from the next depot, Scott and his companions died from a combination of exhaustion, starvation and extreme cold.
Before his appointment to lead the Discovery Expedition, Scott had followed the conventional career of a naval officer in peacetime Victorian Britain. In 1899, he had a chance encounter with Sir Clements Markham, the president of the Royal Geographical Society, and learned for the first time of a planned Antarctic expedition. A few days later, on 11 June, Scott appeared at the Markham residence and volunteered to lead the expedition. Having taken this step, his name became inseparably associated with the Antarctic, the field of work to which he remained committed during the final twelve years of his life.
Following the news of his death, Scott became a celebrated British hero, a status reflected by the many permanent memorials erected across the nation. In the closing decades of the 20th century, the legend was reassessed as attention focused on the causes of the disaster that ended his and his comrades' lives. From a previously unassailable position, Scott became a figure of controversy, with questions raised about his competence and character. Commentators in the 21st century have on the whole regarded Scott more positively, emphasising his personal bravery and stoicism while acknowledging his errors and, more recently, errors by his team members, but ascribing the expedition's fate primarily to misfortune."
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