| Lawrence Oates | |
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| Born | 17 March 1880 Putney, England |
| Died | March 17 1912 (aged 32) on the Ross Ice Shelf |
| Occupation | Cavalry officer, explorer |
Captain Lawrence Edward Grace Oates (March 17, 1880 – March 17, 1912) was a British Antarctic explorer. He was often referred to by the nickname "Titus Oates" after the historical figure.
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Background
Oates was born in Putney in 1880, and educated at Eton College. He saw military service during the Second Boer War as a junior officer in the 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons, having joined in 1900 and been promoted to Lieutenant in 1902, then to Captain. His uncle was the naturalist and African explorer, Frank Oates.
Terra Nova Expedition
In 1910, he applied to join Scott's expedition to the South Pole, and was accepted on the strength of his experience with horses and his ability to make a financial contribution to the expedition. Scott selected him as one of the five-man party who would travel the final distance to the pole, but Oates himself had little desire to go to the pole and was additionally suffering from an old war wound which was aggravated by scurvy. Oates disagreed with Scott many times on issues of management of the expedition, and once wrote in this diary "Myself, I dislike Scott intensely and would chuck the whole thing if it were not that we are a British expedition.... [Scott] is not straight, it is himself first, the rest nowhere...". However, he also wrote that his harsh words were often a product of the hard conditions. On the way back from the pole in January, February and March 1912, the party faced very difficult conditions. After the loss of one man, Edgar Evans, Oates became severely frostbitten and weakened quicker than the others. His slower progress, coupled with the unwillingness of his three remaining companions to leave him, caused the party to fall behind schedule. Eventually Oates, recognising the need to sacrifice himself in order to give the others a chance of survival, deliberately left the tent to die in a blizzard, saying: "I am just going outside and may be some time". However, Oates' sacrifice made no difference to the eventual outcome: although Scott and his remaining men continued onwards towards the food depot, they eventually died around twelve days later, whilst trapped in another blizzard eleven miles short of their objective. Oates' body was never found. He died on his 32nd birthday. Oates' reindeer-skin sleeping bag is displayed in the museum of the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge with other items from the expedition.
In the media
- A biography (I am Just Going Outside: Captain Oates - Antarctic Tragedy, Spellmount Publishers 2002) has confidently alleged that Lawrence Oates fathered a daughter as the result of a brief affair with an 11-year-old Scots girl named Ettie McKendrick. See Guardian article and BBC website.
- Brenda Clough's 2001 fish-out-of-water science fiction novella May Be Some Time has "Titus" Oates transported to the year 2045 where he is healed via advanced medicine.
- On TV series The O.C., Seth Cohen names his imaginary friend and toy horse "Captain Oates".
- In an episode of the British TV series Red Dwarf, the characters plead with the hologram Rimmer to sacrifice himself by agreeing to be turned off, comparing the act to that of Oates. Rimmer simply dismisses him as a "prat", suggesting instead that Oates should have eaten Scott, saying he himself would have eaten Scott after he "whacked him over the head with a frozen husky" had he had been there.
- In Geraldine McCaughrean's 2005 book The White Darkness a teenage girl, Sym, finds herself on an Antarctic adventure during which she is aided by her soul mate Captain Titus Oates (who happens to live only in her head).
- Spanish Metal band CryWar has a song called "Capitan Lawrence", that tells the decision he had to make, leaving his team so he was not anymore a burden to carry around.
- In T R Pearson's novel, Polar, Virginian pornography-enthusiast Clayton spends the last few months of his life channeling the final days of Titus Oates, thereby achieving in death the dignity and selflessness he never achieved in life.
References
- Smith, Michael I Am Just Going Outside. ISBN 1-903464-12-9
- Preston, Diana: A First Rate Tragedy. ISBN 0-618-00201-4
- Huntford, Roland: The Last Place on Earth. ISBN 0-689-70701-0
- Scott, Robert Falcon: Scott's Last Expedition: The Journals. ISBN 0-413-52230-X
- McCaughrean, Geraldine: The White Darkness. ISBN 0-19-271983-1
- Limb, Sue & Cordingley, Patrick: Captain Oates: Soldier and Explorer. ISBN 0-71342693-4
- Goldsmith, Jeremy: British Army officers' records; Career Soldiers in the Family Tree Magazine (London) of June 2007, which shows Oates' Record of Service (with a birth date of 16th March 1880).
External links
- Gilbert White's House and the Oates Museum
- The Life and Death of Lawrence Oates @ Ward's Book of Days
