Footnotes

• 'DOES YOUR MOTHER KNOW WE ARE OUT? WE MANAGED IT THIS TIME': THE MARINE BIOLOGIST ABOARD DISCOVERY SPEAKS OF HIS EXPERIENCES AFTER BEING RELEASED FROM THE ICE
  
  Thomas Vere 'Muggins' Hodgson (1864-1926), his relief evident, writes to a friend in March 1904 shortly after the Discovery was finally released on 16 February after two years trapped in the ice of McMurdo Sound. Hodgson took the post of marine biologist aboard the Discovery after Scott's first choice, William Speirs Bruce, decided to join the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition. He had already had Antarctic experience, having been a member of Carsten Brochgrevink's Southern Cross Expedition of 1898-1901 and, at 37, was the oldest member of the crew, with Sir Clements Markham describing him as having a '...polished bald head, sometimes needing a skull cap, but otherwise apparently strong and healthy...' (Sue Blackhall, Scott of the Antarctic: the Legend 100 Years On, 2012). He developed the sampling methods described here and achieved pioneering work aboard the Discovery, being the first to describe the abundant and diverse communities on the Antarctic's deep sea floor in his 1907 report On Collecting in Antarctic Seas, thus laying the foundations for the scientific achievements of the Terra Nova and subsequent expeditions. Cape Hodgson in the Ross Archipelago is named in his honour.
  
  It would appear that Miss Symms, the recipient of his letter and postcard, after her examination success at Cambridge, took a position at St. Elphin's School, Warrington, a boarding school for daughters of the clergy (closed in 2005), and Hodgson's postcard was redirected to the school's new home in Darley Dale near Matlock where it moved to in 1904. A letter, envelope and press cuttings included in the lot indicate that the letter and postcard were purchased by the present owner's father from M. M. Leakey of Oxford in 1946.