Petty Officer (First Class) Edgar Evans RN
(1876 – 1912)
A native of the Gower, Edgar Evans served on both Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s ‘Discovery’ Antarctic Expedition (1901 – 1904) and his ‘Terra Nova’ Antarctic Expedition (1910 – 1913). ‘Taff’ Evans reached the South Pole with Scott’s polar party on 17th January 1912, just one month after Roald Amundsen. He died at the foot of the Beardmore Glacier on 17th February 1912, on the return journey from the Pole. All five members of the Polar party perished on that fateful mission.
The bust of Edgar Evans was Commissioned by the Captain Scott Society, Cardiff and was sculpted by Philip Chatfield, himself a native of the Gower. Fashioned from white Italian marble, it depicts the subject wearing the harness with which the men hauled their sledge.
It was presented to the people of Swansea by the Lord Mayor of the City of Cardiff and received on their behalf by Sir Michael Llewellyn, the Lord Lieutenant of West Glamorgan. The presentation took place at a Ceremony in the Brangwyn Hall, Swansea, on the17th February1994, the 82nd Anniversary of Edgar Evans’ death.
The bust now stands in the Swansea Museum.