A FORMER Elizabeth College pupil has discovered drawings by Captain Robert Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton in a basement at Cambridge University. The legendary polar explorers made the sketches on blackboards for public lectures in Manchester following Antarctic voyages in 1904 and 1909 respectively.

Cambridge University curator of art Dr Huw Lewis-Jones, 27, whose family live in Guernsey, said he was keen to know how they ended up at the university’s Scott Polar Research Institute.

‘My first surprise was in how they could have been overlooked for so long,’ he said.

‘It’s like having the explorers’ autographs, only more wonderful, because each has signed his name next to a hand-drawn penguin.’

Photography was in its infancy at the time, he said, and most people at the lectures would not have seen penguins before.

‘The lectures would have involved Scott, in a dinner jacket, standing on a podium,’ he said.

News of the find first featured in the UK press but it soon spread worldwide.

Dr Lewis-Jones was born in Chester and his family moved to Guernsey when he was aged about five. On leaving the island in 1998, he studied at Cambridge, where he completed a PhD.

He was also a fellow at Harvard University and curator of imperial and maritime history at the National Maritime Museum, London.

He said people often compared Capt. Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton in terms of their achievements as explorers and their leadership qualities.

‘Now, albeit with smiles on their faces, we can judge their artistic abilities as well,’ he said.

Some might consider the sketches to be crude but Dr Lewis-Jones said he thought they were charming. ‘They were drawn at public lectures in front of an enthusiastic audience to laughter and cheers and then signed with a flourish.’

Capt. Scott made his drawing in 1904 after returning from his voyage aboard Discovery. Sir Ernest Shackleton, who had gone on the same expedition, made his sketch five years later after commanding his own voyage on Nimrod.

That expedition got to within 90 miles of the Pole, the furthest south that any group had been at the time.

Shackleton was the first human to cross the Trans-Antarctic mountain range and set foot on the south polar plateau.

Both images are very fragile and staff are appealing for donations which will enable the drawings to be cleaned and restored so they can go on display.

A project to expand and modernise the museum at the institute, which at present can accommodate only about 10% of its collection, is currently under way.

* Anybody who might be able to help with finance is asked to call Dr Lewis-Jones on 07771 735288.