Description
Polar Exploration, a gold stick-pin, c. 1904, with reverse painted crystal depicting HMS Discovery, port-side view, stuck fast in the Antarctic ice, approx 26 x 22mm. HMS Discovery, the last wooden three-masted ship to be built in Britain, was launched on 21 March 1901, designed for Antarctic research. Her first mission was the British National Antarctic Expedition, carrying Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton on their first, successful journey to the Antarctic, known as the "Discovery Expedition". In preparation for the winter of 1902, Scott weighed anchor in McMurdo Sound, where the ship was to remain, locked in ice, for the next two years. HMS Discovery was eventually freed on 16 February 1904 by the use of controlled explosives and finally sailed for home, arriving back at Spithead on 10 September 1904. She was re-designated RRS (Royal Research Ship) Discovery in 1923 then, in 1936, became a training ship for the Boy Scouts. RRS Discovery is now a museum, the centrepiece of Dundee's "Discovery Point".