History

BSES Expeditions is the longest running and most experienced youth organisation of its kind. This photograph taken on Captain Scott's final Antarctic expedition of 1910-13, unbeknown to the men in the picture below, signalled the beginning of our charity and features our founder, the late Surgeon Commander George Murray Levick RN (second from right).

These six men, the northern party of Captain Scott's last expedition, stand outside the entrance to the snow hole in which they have just spent the 1911-1912 Antarctic Winter in darkness.

The low spring sun allows the zoologist and photographer of the party, Surgeon George Murray Levick RN to take this picture. He is standing second from the right and pulling the string to release the camera shutter. Their clothing and hair was impregnated with seal blubber because all their cooking, mostly of seal meat, was carried out over a seal blubber stove. Among their problems were the shortage of seals to kill during the winter due to constant blizzards, ptomaine poisoning and dysentery due to the cooking conditions, and the fact that they could not stand upright in the cave which they had managed to excavate from the snow.

Their arrival at Cape Evans after a particularly difficult journey later that year, set the seal on an enterprise which tested each member to the limit of endurance, yet which led to its success as a united and successful group. It provided the seed of an educational idea for George Murray Levick which germinated in 1932 with the foundation of BSES, originally known as PSES (The Public Schools Exploring Society).

Since then BSES has gone on to organise over 130 expeditions and visited all seven continents. Gone are the days of male-only expeditions, gin and cigarette rations and standard issue BSES prayer books, but many of the values and traditions of the society can still be experienced today. The construction of ‘Fires’ and structure of expeditions are just two of the traditions that help make BSES membership such a special privilege.