Campaigners want overlooked Antarctic explorer brought in from the cold

One of Britain's greatest scientific explorers, whose achievements have been ignored for almost a century, could at last receive the honour he deserves.

The Royal Scottish Geographical Society (RSGS) is campaigning to have Dr William Speirs Bruce awarded the coveted Polar Medal posthumously as a mark of recognition for his contribution to Antarctic exploration.

For decades, the work of Bruce and his team of scientists, who took part in the successful Scottish National Antarctic Expedition of 1902-04, has been overshadowed by the dramatic exploits of Scott and Shackleton.

"Bruce was never considered newsworthy because, unlike people such as Scott and Shackleton, who were both self-publicists, nothing went wrong on his expeditions," said Dr David Munro, director of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society.

Unlike Scott's expedition, Bruce's party returned alive and under budget. And unlike one of Shackleton's journeys, they did not have to abandon ship and seek rescue. But Scott and Shackleton were awarded the Polar Medal.

Now the RSGS has petitioned the secretive Polar Medal Assessment Committee. It wants the government quango, which recommends recipients to the Queen, to secure the same honour for Bruce. "He really was one of Britain's greatest adventurers. and without his inspiration, the likes of Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton would possibly never have become famous," said Dr Munro. "It was Bruce who, after a trip to the Antarctic in the early 1890s, drew attention to this uncharted area of the world in 1895. He sparked the whole international obsession with the region. Before he went, no one had a complete map of the world and Bruce helped fill in a lot of of the blanks.

"He effectively discovered hundreds of miles of previously unknown coastline on the Antarctic continent and produced six volumes of information on that part of the world."

His two-year expedition on the Scotia discovered new areas of Antarctica, corrected maps and returned with vast numbers of samples, including 21 new species of birds, and valuable information on rocks, plants, animals and the climate.

He and his party built an observatory on Laurie Island in the South Orkneys, which is now the longest continuously operating meteorological station on the continent. They also discovered Coats Land, which they named after the Paisley textile firm that was a major sponsor of the expedition, and made the first sound recordings in Antarctica of penguins.

However, Bruce is thought to have upset establishment figures in London by organising his own expedition after he was refused a place on a British expedition led by Scott, even though he was far more experienced.

Supporters of Bruce suspect that the political and personal reasons that prevented the explorer getting the award at the time could still prove problematic. This fear has prompted Mike Russell, the Scottish National Party's culture spokesman, to lodge a motion in the Scottish Parliament calling for the honour in recognition of "one of the key figures in early 20th-century polar scientific exploration".

Peter Speak, a senior associate at the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge and a biographer of Bruce, said: "Clearly an injustice was done at the time.

"His expedition was more important scientifically than Scott's later expedition to the South Pole but the trouble is that, after so long a time, who can the committee give the medal to?"

Bruce, who never recovered from the snub by the Establishment,had a nervous breakdown and died aged 54 in 1921. "The only option would be to present it to the Royal Scottish Geographical Society in his honour," Mr Speak said.