Silver open face key wind deck watch belonging to Robert Falcon Scott, £24,000 at Bonhams.
A watch used on Robert Falcon Scott’s ill-fated Terra Nova expedition to Antarctica in 1910-1913 appeared at Bonhams on June 3.
Hallmarked 1892, the silver open face key wind deck watch by Daniel Buckney was apparently lent to Scott by the Admiralty before his adventure. With an estimate of £15,000-20,000, it made £24,000 plus 28% buyer’s premium.
Scott and his crew – Edward Wilson, Lawrence Oates, Henry Robertson Bowers and Edgar Evans – were aiming to become the first people to ever reach the South Pole. They did eventually reach it – on January 17, 1912 – only to find they were 34 days later than the Norwegian team led by Roald Amundsen.
On the way back, Scott and the crew perished; their bodies, possessions and photographs discovered by a search party eight months later. Of those possessions was this watch, although a full record of the items recovered seems not to have been made.
Deck watches were portable and used for navigational observations on deck and on land. The primary reference for navigation at sea remained the ship's marine chronometer, which was protected from the elements and kept below decks in a fixed position in a box suspended in gimbals.
This watch was presumably given by naval authorities in Cape Town on August 15, 1910, when the crew was given “every assistance” according to Lieutenant Evans.
The expedition was immortalised by photographs taken by Herbert Ponting, with some of those also appearing at the sale on June 3, including ‘Grotto in the Iceberg’ and a portrait of Scott at his desk at his Cape Evans base.
The watch came with its wooden display box and ivory plaque.
