“Words must always fail me when I talk of Bill Wilson. I believe he really is the finest character I ever met – the closer one gets to him the more there is to admire. . . . Whatever the matter, one knows Bill will be sound, shrewdly practical, intensely loyal and quite unselfish. . . . I think he is the most popular member of the party, and that is saying much.”
— Capt. Scott, in a letter dated 22 Oct 1911
He was christened Edward, and his family called him Ted – the fifth child, eventually of ten, of Dr. Wilson of Cheltenham. Even in early childhood he showed an aptitude for natural history and drawing, and his father encouraged both, allowing him to roam all over the Cotswolds and South Wales, observing animals, collecting specimens, and sketching them. He attended Cheltenham College where he was secretary of the ornithology branch of the Natural History Society, then was accepted into Cambridge to follow in his father's footsteps into medicine. This he did, his very hard work interspersed with regular rowing practice and at least one illicit pre-dawn excursion for trout fishing, but his gruelling work ethic and compulsion to push himself to his limit eventually backfired: while a trainee at St George's Hospital in London, he came down with tuberculosis.
At first it was thought that he needed simply a break from work and smog, so he went to stay with friends in Norway for a while. However, with mountains to climb and vistas to paint and miles of rugged countryside to be tramped over, this only gave young Wilson a greater opportunity for exertion, so he was sent to a sanatorium in Davos, Switzerland, where the medical staff could limit his range. Being cooped up sent him into a depression, but the enforced rest gave him the opportunity to correspond with a young lady he had met in London, Oriana Souper, and their relationship grew from kindred spirits to something rather more substantial.
He returned to England much improved in health, though his doctor advised he resign himself to a quiet life. Of course this was eschewed. “I can't bear people who always take for granted that one's main object is to save up one's health and strength, eyesight and what not, for when one is sixty. How on earth can they tell whether one is going to reach thirty?” Wilson threw himself back into medical studies and got his MD. In the midst of this, he was encouraged to apply for the post of Junior Surgeon and Zoologist on the upcoming Discovery Expedition. Despite his reservations – aside from his health, he and Oriana had got engaged, and he didn't think his artistic skills were sufficient to be considered in that capacity – the decision-makers liked him and offered him the post. He took it.
The Discovery left London in August of 1901, three weeks after Edward and Oriana were married. Wilson was well-loved by his crewmates, who enjoyed his wry humour as much as his drawings, and it was here he got the nickname “Bill.” Wilson himself was particular friends with Ernest Shackleton, and both got along well with the expedition's commander, Robert Falcon Scott. So when Scott set out to push into the continent's interior, it was Wilson and Shackleton he took along.
To keep a long story short, by the time the three returned to the ship (all with scurvy), Wilson was better friends with Scott than with Shackleton. The latter was in such bad shape that he was invalided home, while Wilson and Scott stayed another year. When the Discovery finally returned to civilisation, the friendship between Wilson and Scott had been firmly cemented.
To celebrate their reunion, Dr and Mrs Wilson embarked on several years travelling up and down the country investigating causes of a disease afflicting red grouse. Shackleton invited Wilson to join him on his Nimrod Expedition; Wilson said he was busy. However, on one trip to Scotland he reconnected with Scott and they started devising plans for another trip to the Antarctic; on another he met Apsley Cherry-Garrard, who he would recommend to that expedition.
Once again the Wilsons parted, when the Terra Nova left Cardiff in June of 1910, though they had a brief reunification between South Africa and New Zealand before being parted for real in November. This time Dr Wilson was head of the scientific staff, and as the eldest member thereof, was dubbed Uncle Bill. As before, he was rapidly beloved by all who sailed with him, perhaps even more so than on the Discovery since he was nine years wiser and kinder. His friendship with Scott also made him the communicator between the young scientists and the sometimes aloof leader – if you wanted to say something to Scott, it was much easier to relay it through Wilson. His talents as confidant and peacemaker – and also, probably, his involvement in selecting the scientific staff in the first place – were largely responsible for the first year of the Terra Nova Expedition being remarkably convivial.
One big reason Wilson had been keen to go south again was to acquire some Emperor penguin embryos, which could only be done while the eggs were being incubated in the winter. On the Discovery Expedition, they located an Emperor rookery at Cape Crozier, on the western end of Ross Island; when conditions prevented them setting up base there in January 1911, it necessitated a midwinter journey the following June. Wilson and Cherry-Garrard had already planned to do this together, and agreed Bowers was the obvious choice for the third. They set off a few days after the Midwinter feast and endured five weeks of almost unimaginably arduous conditions, culminating in a hurricane-force blizzard on Wilson's birthday which blew their tent away. Miraculously, they made it back to base mostly unharmed and with three whole Emperor eggs. It was this journey that gave Cherry the title for his book, The Worst Journey in the World.
A few months later, they were on the trail again, this time partly retracing the route travelled by Wilson, Scott, and Shackleton in Discovery times, as they trekked to the South Pole. On top of his services as an experienced and capable sledger, Wilson also contributed sketch after sketch of the mountains up the Beardmore Glacier, often battling through snowblindness to do so. To no one's surprise, he was selected for the final Polar Party, and of the three journals kept by that party, his is the least bothered by finding they'd been beaten to their goal – “We want the Scientific work to make the bagging of the Pole merely an item in the results,” he had written to his father in 1909, and this attitude was more than just a pose.
Things started going wrong even before they turned back north. Taff Evans had injured his hand in modifying their sledge and disclosed this after leaving the Pole, when infection had already set in. Wilson, as doctor, tended it as best he could, and the frostbites that Evans was prone to. Then Wilson himself strained a tendon in his leg, which took several days to recover well enough to get back in harness. Evans' condition kept deteriorating, and despite Wilson's best efforts, he died at the bottom of the glacier. When they failed to find the warmer temperatures they were expecting back at sea level, it was Oates' frostbite that took Wilson's time and attention – that was also revealed too late, and got worse quickly. On March 11th, Scott “practically ordered Wilson to hand over the means of ending our troubles to us, so that anyone of us may know how to do so. Wilson had no choice between doing so and our ransacking the medicine case.” Oates let Antarctica do the dirty work for him, and eventually the remaining three decided to do the same, but not before pushing themselves as far as they could go.
Even after the remaining three were pinned down by a blizzard, Wilson was determined to go on, being prepared to make an attempt with Bowers to reach the next depot and bring back some food and fuel – a round trip of 22 miles for two men already at the limit of their endurance. Both seemed to expect they would die on the way, which may explain why they never left – leaving Scott to die alone would have been a greater strain on them morally than the journey would have been physically. Wilson kept his equanimity to the end: Scott wrote a very moving letter to Oriana, apologising for getting her husband into this mess and telling her of the “comfortable blue look of hope” in his eyes, “and his mind is peaceful with the Satisfaction of his faith in regarding himself as part of the great scheme of the almighty. I can do no more to comfort you than to tell you that he died as he lived a true brave man – the best of comrades and staunchest of friends.”
Sources
Cheltenham in Antarctica by D.M. Wilson (great-nephew) and D.B. Elder
The Last Letters by the Polar Party, ed. Heather Lane, Naomi Boneham, and Robert D. Smith
A note on the drawings: The pages you see here span about a year and a half. Wilson is my favourite, so I get worked up about getting him right, and then can't draw at all. What I ought to do is take him to the pub and unwind, but what I actually do is give up and take another stab a few months later, usually in a situation bereft of reference. Despite all this, in retrospect I think some progress has been made...?