He added: "I want you to secure a competence for my widow and boy. I leave them very ill provided for but feel the country ought not to neglect them.
"After all, we are setting a good example to our countrymen, if not by getting into a tight place, by facing it like men when we were there."
Scott was 42 when he set sail from Cardiff for Melbourne in the supply ship Terra Nova in June 1910, hoping that he and his party would be the first humans to set foot on the South Pole. They set up camp on Ross Island in January 1911, having heard while they were in Australia that they were in competition with a Norwegian expedition, led by Roald Amundsen.
The British set off for the pole in October 1911 with sledges, ponies and dogs. The ponies could not cope, and by December they had all been shot. The dog teams turned back in mid-December. Scott and his four remaining companions reached the South Pole on 17 January, only to learn that Amundsen had got there first.
A despairing Scott wrote in his diary: "Great God! This is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward for priority."
Worse followed on the journey back. One of the party, Private Edgar Evans, died on February 17 after a fall. By March 15, Captain Lawrence Oates had developed severe frostbite and, realising he would hold the others back, told them: "I am going outside and may be some time."
He walked out into a blizzard and was never seen again.
Scott, Dr Edward Wilson and Lieutenant Henry Bowers died in their tent only 18km from a food depot, having trekked about 1300km back from the pole. They were found by a search party eight months later.
Until the recent acquisition, the note to Bridgeman was one of two of Scott's last letters in private hands. The other, to Edgar Speyer, was sold last year for £165,000. Letters he wrote to his wife Kathleen, and to Oriana Wilson, Emily Bowers, Sir Reginald Smith and George Egerton, are already held by the institute. The eighth, addressed to Scott's friend, Peter Pan author JMBarrie, appears to have been lost.
Last words from a doomed expedition
My dear Sir Francis, I fear we have shipped up - a close shave. I am writing a few letters which I hope will be delivered some day. I want to thank you for the friendship you gave me of late years, and to tell you how extraordinarily pleasant I found it to serve under you. I want to tell you I was not too old for this job. It was the younger men that went under first.
Finally, I want you to secure a competence for my widow and boy. I leave them very ill provided for, but feel the country ought not to neglect them. After all we are setting a good example to our countrymen, if not by getting into a tight place, by facing it like men when we were there. We could have come through had we neglected the sick. Good-bye and good-bye to dear Lady Bridgeman.
Yours ever, R Scott
Excuse writing - it is minus 40, and has been for nigh a month.
- Independent
