Princess marks Scott expedition’s centenary

The Princess Royal has joined descendants of Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his team for a ceremony marking the centenary of their doomed expedition to the Antarctic.

She joined family members and descendants of the 1912 Terra Nova Expedition team at the National Scott Memorial, in Plymouth.

A bagpiper played a lament as the Princess, in a royal blue dress, joined Nicola Stark, Scott’s granddaughter, and Philippa Foster-Back, granddaughter of expedition geologist Frank Debenham, to lay wreaths at the memorial in the city where Scott was born and raised.

She then attended a reception with other descendants of the ill-fated group, local dignitaries and members of re-enactment group Arctic Adventurers.

The team of five led by Scott were famously beaten to the pole by Norwegian Roald Amundsen. They arrived 33 days after Amundsen on 17 January, 1912, and died on their return journey the following March.

The memorial, unveiled in 1925, features bronze portrait medallions of Scott and the other members of the South Pole party, Dr Edward Wilson, Captain Lawrence Oates, Lieutenant Henry Bowers and Petty Officer Edgar Evans.

A new plaque was added to the memorial.