Scott’s farewell letter sells for £163k

A FAREWELL letter written by polar explorer Captain Robert Scott, in which he said his team would die “like gentlemen”, has been bought for £163,250 at auction.

The letter, which sold for more than its estimate of £150,000, was bought by an anonymous British collector at Bonhams in London.

A photograph of the ship, the Terra Nova, on which Scott and his men sailed to Antarctica, and another of the sea close to the explorers’ base camp, were also on sale. Both far exceeded their asking prices of between £2,000 and £6,000, making £13,750 and £15,000 respectively.

The letter, found on Scott’s frozen body in November 1912, was written eight months earlier to financier Sir Edgar Speyer.

Scott wrote: “I fear we must go… but we have been to the Pole and we shall die like gentlemen.”