Lawrence Edward Grace "Titus" Oates was a British army officer, and later an Antarctic explorer, who died from hypothermia during the Terra Nova Expedition when he walked from his tent into a blizzard. His death, which occurred on his 32nd birthday, is seen as an act of self-sacrifice when, aware that the gangrene and frostbite from which he was suffering was compromising his three companions' chances of survival, he chose certain death for himself to relieve them of the burden of caring for him.
Lawrence Oates
Oates's primary task on the expedition was to attend to its horses.
Oates (far right) at the South Pole on 18 January 1912 as part of the Terra Nova Expedition. From left to right: Wilson, Bowers, Evans, Scott and Oates.
Monument to Oates, close to Holy Trinity Church, Meanwood, Leeds
The Terra Nova Expedition, officially the British Antarctic Expedition, was an expedition to Antarctica which took place between 1910 and 1913. Led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott, the expedition had various scientific and geographical objectives. Scott wished to continue the scientific work that he had begun when leading the Discovery Expedition from 1901 to 1904, and wanted to be the first to reach the geographic South Pole.
Scott, Bowers, Wilson, and Edgar Evans at Amundsen's base at the South Pole
Edward Adrian Wilson, Robert Falcon Scott, Lawrence Oates, Henry Robertson Bowers and Edgar Evans at the South Pole
Robert Falcon Scott in 1905
Tabloid medical chest for Scott's Antarctic Expedition, 1910
