William Speirs Bruce Way

Speirs Bruce Way, Edinburgh EH5 1QJ

Walk from Caroline Park house to this new walkway. This is named after William Speirs Bruce (1867-1921) one of the foremost, and most successful, polar scientists of his age. He left his medical studies at the University of Edinburgh and joined the 1892-3 Dundee Whaling Expedition as a scientific observer and naturalist. From 1894-96 Bruce worked at the Ben Nevis Summit Meteorological Station, gaining valuable experience in scientific procedures and in using meteorological instruments. Between 1896 and 1897 he was part of several Arctic expeditions, to Franz Josef Land, Novaya Zemlya and Spitsbergen.

Somehow Bruce also had the time to found the Scottish Ski Club, and to co-found Edinburgh Zoo. It was with the help of fellow founder Edward Salvesen, who had family connections with the whaling industry, that Bruce was able to bring the first ever penguins to Corstorphine Hill.

Overlooked for Captain RF Scott’s British Antarctic Expedition, Bruce decided he would lead his own. In 1902 The Scottish National Antarctic Expedition sailed from Troon on The Scotia. Bruce and his team built two scientific and metrological observatories on Laurie Island. These are the oldest metrological stations in Antarctica amd have provided the longest prolonged recording of temperature in the region.

A recent re-appraisal of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition of 1902-4 recognises its importance as a foundation of climate change study, and of William Speirs Bruce as a pioneer of Polar research. Today he is commemorated by The Bruce Memorial Prize, for Polar Scientists; Cape Bruce, in the Franz Josef Land archipelago; the Orcada Weather Station, Laurie Island, Antarctica; and by this public footpath that leads to the shore.