Scott’s negatives are of outstanding importance to the United Kingdom’s heritage and the opportunity to keep the collection intact - and in this country - cannot be lost.
- Sir Ranulph Fiennes
The Polar Museum needs to raise £275,000 in less than a month to avoid the prospect of the 113 photographic negatives being sold off at auction. The negatives represent an extraordinary visual record of Scott’s last expedition, but are in danger of being sold abroad.
The negatives have been recently rediscovered, having been thought lost. This is the only chance a museum in the United Kingdom has of acquiring this extraordinary visual record of Scott’s last, heroic expedition. The Museum has no budget for acquisitions and is entirely reliant on public support.
Sir Ranulph Fiennes, who is spearheading the Cambridge fundraising campaign, said: “Scott’s negatives are of outstanding importance to the United Kingdom’s heritage and the opportunity to keep the collection intact - and in this country - cannot be lost.
“This is the only chance a museum in the United Kingdom will have to purchase the actual negatives taken by Scott on his final expedition. We must raise the funds by March 2 so that they can take their rightful place in Cambridge alongside the camera on which they were taken as well as the remaining Scott and Herbert Ponting prints - all of which speak so powerfully to us of the courage and sacrifice of those on the British Antarctic Expedition.”
Image: Line of men and ponies pulling laden sledges on the ice
Credit: SPRI P2012/5/56
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Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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