| Main Performers | Lord Curzon (PGS President),
Commander Evans CB RN - speakers |
| Set List | Introduction (Lord Curzon),
Lecture illustrated with slides and kinematograph films (Commander Evans) |
| Performance Notes | "'The story of Captain Scott's successful journey to the South Pole, and of his death with his four brave companions on the Great Ice Barrier of the Antarctic, was told last night by Commander E R G R Evans RN CB., at the Royal Albert Hall. The meeting was confined to members of the Royal Geographical Society and their friends, but every seat in the great hall was occupied. They had met to welcome the survivors of the Expedition, and, as Lord Curzon said in his introductory speech, to hear from the lips of their commander the record of the Expedition which culminated in such mingled triumph and disaster, but which will be for ever remembered, not merely for its crowning tragedy, but for its splendid tale of work accomplished and results archieved."
(The Times, 22 May 1913)
"THE BRITISH ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION
RECEPTION AT THE ALBERT HALL
On the evening of Wednesday, May 21, the members of Captain Scott's expedition who had arrived in England were received at a great meeting of the Society in the Albert Hall. About nine thousand people were present...
A lecture on some of the leading events of the expedition was given by Commander E R G R Evans CB RN, who on the death of Captain Scott succeeded to the command. The lecture was illustrated by slides and cinematograph films from the beautiful photographs taken by the official photographer of the expedition, Mr H G Ponting. The President, Earl Curzon of Kedleston, who was in the chair, made the following introductory remarks:-
[Speech in full including] ...Those who knew Captain Scott best are convinced that what we are doing to-night is exactly what he would have wished us to do. His unselfish nature would have rebelled against the idea that the survivors should nor receive their meed of honour because he had fallen, or that the record of the Expedition should not be given to this Society and to the public at an Albert Hall meeting because he was not here to deliver the message and to acknowledge the cheers."
(The Geographical Journal, Vol.42, No.1, July 1913, pp.8-10)
"THRILLING STORY BY COMMANDER EVANS.
PERSONAL EXPERIENCES
EARL CURZON'S TRIBUTE.
...Probably there was not a member of the vast assembly who did not travel in imagination from the warmth and radiance of the great amphitheatre to the stark and frozen wastes of the uttermost South, to the icy sepulture of Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his heroic companions in the march that led to death, and, by the same dread path, to immortal fame.
But the inevitable mingling wit it of thoughts of the absent dead did not lessen the sincerity and heartiness of the recption that was accorded the lviing present. The audience realised that these men were as much the heroes of the hazardous adventure as those who bodies lie in the southern icefield....
The meeting was confined to members of the Royal Georgraphical Society and their friends - the first opportunity the general public will have of hearing Commander Evan's lecture will be at the Queen's Hall on June 4, when the First lord of the Admiralty, Mr Winston Churchill MP will preside - but, despite this limitation, the audience was more than sufficient to fill the immense space of the hall from the floor to the farthermost gallery under the dome."
(The Daily Telegraph, 22 May 1913)
The following members of the expedition were seated on the platform - Lieutenant V L A Campbell, Lieutenant W M Bruce, Surgeon E L Atkinson, Mr Francis Drake, Mr Cecil H Meares, Mr H G Ponting, Mr A Cherry-Garrard, Mr Griffith Taylor, Mr R E Priestly, Mr T Gran, and Mr H J Mather. |