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Cirrus & Stratocirrus clouds in Antarctica (D10725)

Edward Wilson was born in Cheltenham on 23 July 1872, the second son and fifth child of physician Edward Thomas Wilson and his wife, Mary Agnes.  He spent much of his youth at The Crippetts farm, Leckhampton and developed a love of the countryside, natural history and drawing from an early age.  In 1891, he went to Cambridge, where he read Natural Sciences, obtaining a first-class degree in 1894, then he studied medicine and after qualifying in 1900, he became a junior house surgeon at Cheltenham General Hospital. Shortly afterwards however he was appointed junior doctor and zoologist to the Discovery Expedition to Antarctica.  This expedition lasted from 1901 to 1904 and made several scientific discoveries also being notable for the Wilson, Scott and Shackleton making the southernmost trek achieved by any explorers, although it almost cost their lives.  On their return, Wilson had completed a portfolio of drawings and sketches of Antarctic scenery, which were published by the expedition organisers, the Royal Society and the Royal Geographical Society.  In 1910, Wilson took part in the Terra Nova Expedition (officially the British Antarctic Expedition) again led by Captain Scott.  On 18 January 1912, Wilson was one of Scott’s 5-man Polar party that reached the South Pole, only to find that Norwegian Roald Amundsen and his team had beaten them to it by five weeks.  On the return trip, the entire party died; some of their bodies, journals, and photographs were found by a search party eight months later.