Captain Scott's Birthday Dinner, 6 June 1911

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© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Captain Scott's Birthday Dinner, 6 June 1911

by Herbert George Ponting
carbon print, 6 June 1911
20 7/8 in. x 25 3/4 in. (529 mm x 654 mm)
Purchased, 2005
Primary Collection
NPG P1100

Artistback to top

  • Herbert George Ponting (1870-1935), Photographer and antarctic explorer. Artist or producer associated with 13 portraits, Sitter in 1 portrait.

Sittersback to top

This portraitback to top

This photograph records a rare moment of relaxation and celebration. Scott's diary records the event: 'June 6... my birthday, a fact I might easily have forgotten, but my kind people did not...we sat down to a sumptuous spread with our sledge banners hung about us...everyone was very festive and amiably appreciative.'

Placesback to top

  • Place made and portrayed: Antarctica (Cape Crozier, Ross Island, Antarctica)

Linked displays and exhibitionsback to top

Events of 1911back to top

Current affairs

Asquith's Liberal government introduces the Parliament Act to curb the powers of the House of Lords following the clash between the Commons and Lords over the 1909 People's Budget. The Act removed the Lords' power to veto bills, reduced the length of Parliament from seven to five years, and provided for the payment of MPs.

Art and science

Ernest Rutherford discovers the structure of the atom. The New Zealand born physicist working in Manchester showed with his Nuclear Model that electrons orbited a nucleus composed of protons and neutrons. The discovery paved the way for nuclear physics.

International

The Polish Chemist, Marie Curie, becomes the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for her discovery in 1898 of the radioactive element, Radon.
The Mona Lisa is stolen from the Louvre. The masterpiece was missing for two years, during which time suspicion fell on avant-garde poet Guillaume Apollinaire and his friend Pablo Picasso, before Vincenzo Peruggia, an employee of the Louvre, was arrested in Florence.

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