Discovery Expedition - Personnel

Personnel

Markham had hoped for a fully-fledged Royal Naval expedition, but was warned by the Admiralty that "the present exigencies of the Naval Service prevent them from lending officers..." However, the Admiralty agreed to release Scott and Charles Royds, and later allowed Michael Barne and Reginald Skelton to join the expedition. The remaining officers were from the Merchant Marine, including Albert Armitage, the second-in-command, who had experience with the Jackson–Harmsworth Arctic expedition, 1894–97, and Ernest Shackleton, designated Third Officer in charge of holds, stores and provisions, and responsible for arranging the entertainments. The Admiralty also released around twenty petty officers and seamen, the rest of the crew being from the merchant service, or from civilian employment. Among the lower deck complement were some who became Antarctic veterans, including Frank Wild, William Lashly, Thomas Crean (who joined the expedition following the desertion of a seaman in New Zealand), Edgar Evans and Ernest Joyce. Although the expedition was not a formal Navy project, Scott proposed to run the expedition on naval lines, and secured the crew's voluntary agreement to work under the Naval Discipline Act.

The scientific team was inexperienced. Dr George Murray, Gregory's successor as chief scientist, was due to travel only as far as Australia (in fact he left the ship at Cape Town), using the voyage to train the scientists, but with no part to play in the detailed work of the expedition. The only scientist with previous Antarctic experience was Louis Bernacchi, who had been with Borchgrevink as magnetic observer and meteorologist. The geologist, Hartley Ferrar, was a 22-year-old recent Cambridge graduate who Markham thought "might be made into a man." Marine biologist Thomas Vere Hodgson, from Plymouth Museum, was a more mature figure, as was the senior of the two doctors, Reginald Koettlitz, who, at 39, was the oldest member of the expedition. He, like Armitage, had been with the Jackson–Harmsworth expedition. The junior doctor and zoologist was Edward Wilson, who became close to Scott and provided the qualities of calmness, patience and detachment that the captain reportedly lacked.