Captain Scott's Invaluable Assistant: Edgar Evans

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 Antarctica 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 journey. 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.