Book description
Edgar Evans was described by Robert Falcon Scott as 'a giant
worker…an invaluable assistant'. Having joined the Royal Navy as a boy
sailor at the age of 15, he rose rapidly to the rank of chief petty
officer, serving with a young Scott on board HMS Majestic along the
way. He took part in the Discovery Expedition of 1901-04, and was
awarded the Polar Medal on Scott's recommendation. In between
expeditions, he trained the Royal Tournament-winning Portsmouth field
gun team. He explored more miles of Antartica than any other member of
the Terra Nova Expedition, but his contribution has been largely
overlooked because of the implication that, as he was the first to
die, he slowed up the progress of the return journedy. Isobel
Williams's biography of Evans corrects this false impression, as well
as redresses the balance of the attention paid to the upper- and
lower-deck members of the expedition.
Isobel Williams is a retired consultant in respiratory medicine
with a life-long fascination for Antarctic exploration. She is the
author of With Scott in the Antarctic, a biography of Edward Wilson,
who accompanied Scott on both the Discovery and the Terra Nova Expeditions.
