Wellcome to the South Pole

Last Sunday, BBC2 broadcast The Secrets of Scott's Hut, a documentary which featured presenter Ben Fogle journeying to Antarctica, to observe the work of a team of conservators, attempting to preserve the hut of the explorer Captain Robert Falcon Scott. The hut acted as both accommodation and research centre during Scott's attempt in 1911 to reach the South Pole. It was then abandoned, leaving behind 10,000 items: the everyday and scientific materials of Scott and his men.

We've written before of the connection between Burroughs Wellcome & Co (BW&Co) - the pharmaceutical company co-founded by Henry Wellcome - and Scott's Antarctic Expedition, so it was nice to see within a few minutes of the documentary, Fogle and two conservators unpacking a surving medicine chest, which included Burroughs Wellcome & Co products.

More BW&Co chemicals were visible on screen when the documentary discussed the role of Herbert Ponting, the photographer on the Expedition. To illustrate the importance of Ponting's role, Scott's hut even had a dedicated dark room set outside for Ponting to develop his photographs. And there on the shelves of the dark room... developer supplied by Burroughs Wellcome & Co.

The Wellcome Foundation Archives held in the Wellcome Library include more details on the role Burroughs Wellcome & Co played in this and many other expeditions of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

The Secret of Scott's Hut is available on the BBC iPlayer to viewers in the UK until Sunday April 24th.

Images:
- Medicine bottles in Scott's hut. On the right is Burroughs Wellcome & Co 'Tabloid' Liquorice Compound Powder, to soothe upset stomachs. Taken from this BBC Slideshow.
- Advert for 'Tabloid' 'Rytol' showing Herbert Ponting, official photographer to the British Antarctic Expedition, 1910, developing a plate with 'Tabloid' 'Rytol' in his dark-room in the hut featured in the documentary (WF/M/PB/25/01/10).

Vital Mental Medicine

A BBC Radio 4 documentary which aired today, Vital Mental Medicine: Shackleton's Banjo, offers an indirect insight into an aspect of Henry Wellcome's life.

The documentary tells the story of the instrument shown above: a banjo belonging to Leonard Hussey, a meteorologist who was part of Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition expedition party which set out on board the Endurance in 1914. Famously, the Endurance became stuck in pack ice forcing Shackleton and five crew members to sail the 1,300 km to South Georgia in a small boat in an attempt to get help. He left behind twenty-two men: one of whom was Hussey.

As the Endurance was sinking, Shackleton allowed each crew member to take 2 lbs of possessions with them. The only exception to this was Hussey's banjo - which Shackleton himself retrieved. "We must have that banjo", Shackleton was reported to have said, "It's vital mental medicine".

Miraculously, Shackleton made it to South Georgia and all the stranded men were eventually rescued. Their signatures adorn Hussey's banjo (now owned by the National Maritime Museum and currently on display in the National Maritime Museum Cornwall) which he played to the other twenty-one men he was stranded with.

As for the Wellcome connection... we move from the ice of Antarctica to the sun of the Sudan, as it was there that Hussey first saw the newspaper advertisement calling for volunteers for Shackleton's expedition. And the reason Hussey was in the Sudan? He was working on Henry Wellcome's archaeological excavations at Gebel Moya in the north of that country, during the winter of 1913-1914.

Between 1911 and 1914, Henry Wellcome funded excavations at Gebel Moya, south of Khartoum. Both a continuation of Henry Wellcome's charitable work in the Sudan and a practical example of his interest in archaeology, the excavations were a major contribution to the knowledge of the early history of Eastern Africa. They also featured an ingenious use of aerial photography - a development which these excavations have seldom been credited with. (Life at Gebel Moya during the 1912-1913 season was captured on a film now digitised as part of our Wellcome Film project).

It appears that Hussey's time with Wellcome at Gebel Moya was a major formative influence. Amongst the personal papers we hold of Wellcome's, we have correspondence between him and Hussey. Hussey, in a letter dated 21st August 1918, writes that:

"I don't think that we all quite realised the immense value of the training in discipline and especially in loyalty, which we had at Gebel Moya. Sir Ernest Shackleton - and I say this with all diffidence - always refers to me as "one of the most cheerful and loyal ones", and I wish for no finer epigraph". [1]

For more on Hussey's cheerfulness - and how his banjo kept spirits up amongst his fellow strandees - have a listen to the documentary, which is available through the BBC iPlayer to listeners in the UK until next Saturday (18th December).

Image credit: National Maritime Museum

[1] From file WA/HMM/CO/Ear/316. The letter also makes brief mention of Hussey and Shackleton about to embark on a "wartime mission in Northern Russia".

The Enduring Antarctic Adventure of Clare Plug

 Illustration: Clare Plug. Ice Crack 2, 2008.

The New Zealand textile artist Clare Plug has spent the last few years of her career developing a fascinating body of work that entails intimately observed details along with wider conceptions and observations of the most rarely visited of all the planets continents.

In 2006 Plug was lucky enough to visit the continent of Antarctica as part of a fellowship, staying with the official government Antarctica NZ at Scott Base in the vicinity of the Ross Ice Shelf. It is no small exaggeration to say that this experience fundamentally changed her views and the entire aspect of her work, so much so that much of the textile art work that she produces to this day is haunted by this most spectacular and hauntingly beautiful continent.

Illustration: Clare Plug. Ice Crack 2 (detail), 2008.

The three works shown here are examples of Plug's Antarctica Series which explores a number of aspects of the continent from the fragile and relatively recent human experience, to the much older and grander sweep of geological and climatic history that has become so pressingly relevant in our own contemporary world.

Through discharge dyeing, applique and quilting techniques, Plug has been able to not only detail her own experiences along with those of others past and present, but perhaps more importantly to focus our attention on the emotional ambience of the landscape and the sense of harsh beauty that it entails. Through her sensitive use of textural colour and stitching, the artist can help us to identify the strange combination of a climate that is so harsh that it can kill most life forms, while at the same time being supremely fragile, delicate and sensitive and so easily prone to destruction by outside forces.

Illustration: Clare Plug. Midnight at the Barne Glacier, 2008.

These moody and sometimes even ethereal textile pieces are in many regards emotionally observed landscapes. Admittedly, they can only give us an indication as to the multiple experiences that would be observed on the continent itself. However, Plugs work has such a defined ambient compositional quality to it that although most of us will probably never visit the continent itself, we can at least share some of the wonder and sheer magnetism of this most intriguing and other-worldly part of the planet.

Through her landscapes, both climatically and geographically based, humans seem to make only the barest and most tenuous of impressions. No more obvious an example of this underlying feeling is Out on the Barrier which seems to give a hint of a hauntingly indistinct portrayal of a possible human symbol, or not. To show our lack of domination of one continent out of seven, everything in Antarctica seems transient, misleading, even misdirected seeming at times to be playing tricks on our senses and our preconceptions. The physical and emotional scale of the experience seems well beyond the human scale in which to focus, catalogue and identify. This often featureless and unimaginably empty continent challenges us to imagine a world where the human species cannot automatically deem themselves dominant, and for our own sanity that feeling of inadequacy mixed with awe, can only be for the betterment of us all.

Illustration: Clare Plug. Out on the Barrier, 2008.

A wide range of Plug's textile art pieces were part of the Look South exhibition held at the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch New Zealand. This exhibition was due to continue until the end of September. However, due to the major earthquake experienced by South Island, the exhibition has had to disappointingly close early, though I am sure Plugs hauntingly beautiful textile work will be seen at many more venues in the near future.

Clare Plug has a web presence where much more of her work can be seen. She has exhibited in New Zealand, the US and Europe as well as being featured in a number of publications. Another interesting site listed is that of Antarctica NZ which gives details of New Zealand's official work in Antarctica as well as information on Scott Base where Plug stayed in 2006. On the site there is a webcam of the base which updates every 15 minutes. Both sites can be found in the Reference links section below.

Illustration: Clare Plug. Out on the Barrier (detail), 2008.

All images were used with the kind persmission of the artist.

Reference links:
Clare Plug website
Antarctica New Zealand