It鈥檚 big. It鈥檚 heavy. And it鈥檚 very, very black. But it hardly seems heroic. Yet this briquette of Crown Patent Fuel, a block of Welsh coal dust bound together with bitumen, has earned its place in the story of Antarctic exploration, as told in a new exhibition at the National Maritime Museum in London. The briquette of patent fuel that went south with the ill-fated British Antarctic Expedition of 1910-the last journey of Captain Robert Scott-is a reminder of the everyday grind of exploration, the hardship and boredom, and the challenge of staying alive in a hostile climate. It is also a reminder that without the backing of an enthusiastic band of Welsh supporters, who provided coal and much else, Scott鈥檚 expedition would probably never have taken place.
ON THE evening of 14 June 1910, the Lord Mayor of Cardiff held a party. There was a splendid buffet and music by Madame Hughes-Thomas鈥檚 Royal Welsh Ladies Choir. It probably wasn鈥檛 the sort of party a bunch of tough, Antarctica-bound men might have wished for on the eve of their departure, but it was all part of Cardiff鈥檚 big send-off. And as the city had more or less paid for the venture it would have been churlish to stay away.
The British Antarctic Expedition, led by Captain Robert Scott, had chosen Cardiff as its point of departure for a good reason. When Scott began planning his attack on the South Pole, he found it hard to drum up interest. The public was singularly underwhelmed by the idea. People were already fed up with being asked to dip into their pockets to support polar expeditions. Except in Wales. Cardiff, the capital, had recently been elevated to city status and some of its most prominent businessmen thought that being associated with the adventure might boost the city鈥檚 standing and fortunes. Cardiff raised more money for the trip than any other city in Britain. And so the Terra Nova, the leaky old whaler Scott had acquired for the voyage, left London in June 1910 and sailed to south Wales in readiness for its official departure.
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An influential group of shipowners made sure the trip was supplied with almost everything free, from a new coat of paint for the Terra Nova and a tow out to sea, to cooking pans from the Welsh Tin Plate Company. Most important of all, there was free coal. Scott needed coal to fuel the Terra Nova and keep his men alive once they reached the Antarctic.
This wasn鈥檛 just any old coal but 300 tonnes of neat, square blocks of patent fuel provided by the Crown Preserved Coal Company. Patent fuel had many advantages over 鈥渟team coal鈥�. Stacked in tidy rows, the briquettes occupied a third less space than the same weight of ordinary lump coal-an important consideration for a small ship. 鈥淭he Terra Nova depended on coal, and the length of the ship鈥檚 stay in the South, and the amount of exploration she could do after landing the shore parties, depended almost entirely upon how much coal she could be persuaded to hold after all the necessaries of modern scientific exploration had been wedged tightly into her,鈥� wrote Apsley Cherry-Garrard, one of the survivors of the trip, in his book The Worst Journey in the World.
The briquettes were also more suited to the extreme climate of Antarctica. Once coal is exposed to the air, its chemistry and physical structure start to change-and this weathering is faster in extreme climates. In very hot or cold climates coal becomes harder to light and generates less heat as it burns. But the bitumen used to bind the coal dust into briquettes prevented this deterioration. 鈥淎 well made block of patent fuel is practically unalterable by time or weather,鈥� says Hints for Coal Buyers, published in 1921.
Patent fuel was already a tried and tested technology and it was a particularly Welsh product. Until the 1860s, the only coal from South Wales that made a profit was large lump coal. Smaller pieces and coal dust were discarded as waste, until someone hit on the idea of mixing coal dust with bitumen to make bricks of fuel. 鈥淪mall coals鈥� were crushed and mixed with powdered bitumen. The mixture-around 90 per cent coal and 10 per cent bitumen-was steam-heated and pressed into moulds to make blocks of the required size. Patent fuel factories sprang up at all the South Wales ports. The fuel proved so resistant to deterioration it was shipped to depots all around the world for refuelling British ships.
The fuel blocks were a boon to Scott. The Terra Nova desperately needed to save space. The ship was so overloaded with gear and provisions that it was low in the water and leaking like a sieve even before it set sail. Aware that his ship wasn鈥檛 as seaworthy as it ought to be, Scott had registered it as a private yacht, avoiding inspection by the Board of Trade, which might have scuppered the whole venture. Despite the leaks, the Terra Nova set sail on 15 June. Five months later, the ship reached New Zealand where 19 ponies, 3 motor sledges and 33 sledge dogs added to the load. Scott also joined the ship here, having left the Terra Nova just outside Cardiff and travelled south by more luxurious mail steamer.
Once the expedition had settled into its headquarters at Cape Evans, the fuel briquettes proved invaluable for heating the men鈥檚 hut, cooking hot meals and baking fresh bread. 鈥淲e burn nothing in our stoves but Crown Patent Fuel,鈥� wrote Edward Evans, Scott鈥檚 second in command, in a letter to his friend Percy Lewis in Cardiff. 鈥淥nce our men got used to it they had no use for anything else. It knocks spots off coal down here.鈥� The brick-shaped blocks of coal also helped to improve living conditions for the long-suffering ponies, providing ideal insulation for the outer wall of their stable.
The team spent the grim winter months preparing for the push to the pole by laying up depots of food and fuel along the route. Scott set out on the final leg in October 1911, arriving on 18 January only to find that the Norwegian Roald Amundsen had beaten him to the prize. Scott and his four companions died on the return journey.