Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Third Supplement.djvu/441

 ponies which were to be used for sledge haulage.

The expedition sailed in the Terra Nova in June 1910, and leaving New Zealand in November reached the Ross Sea and established a base at Cape Evans on Ross Island in January 1911. Oates took a prominent part in the depôt-laying in January and February, in preparation for the southern journey of the following summer. In November 1911 a sledging party, which included Oates, set out under Scott's leadership for the South Pole. Several of the ponies had been lost by accident during the autumn and winter, but the survivors, thanks largely to Oates's careful attention, were in good condition. These and the dog teams helped in haulage to the foot of the Beardmore glacier, where the surviving ponies were slaughtered and the dog teams sent back. From that point onwards the sledges were man-hauled. The last supporting party under Lieutenant E. R. G. R. Evans, R.N., was sent back from latitude 86° 32′ S. The men who continued south with Scott were Oates, Dr. Edward Adrian Wilson [q.v.], Lieutenant H. R. Bowers, R.I.M., and Petty Officer Edgar Evans. Soft snow, sastrugi, and low temperatures made travelling arduous and sorely tried the strength of the party, but Oates stood the strain as well as any of them. The Pole was reached on 18 January 1912, thirty-four days after Roald Amundsen had planted the Norwegian flag there.

The return journey was begun the same day. Temperatures were very low and the surface was bad for travelling. Oates showed signs of feeling the cold severely, but the party made good progress to the head of the Beardmore glacier. Petty Officer Evans was the first to break down, and marching was very slow for several days before his death (17 February). The four men reached a depôt the next day, and with more liberal food rations their hopes rose. But on the barrier travelling conditions were bad and the temperatures fell as low as -47° F. Survival depended on the ability of the weakened men to reach each depôt before their scanty food and fuel supplies were exhausted. Oates suffered much from frost-bitten feet, but his indomitable spirit never weakened and he marched as long as he was able. At length he could go no farther and asked to be left behind. This request was of course refused. For another day he struggled on. ‘He slept through the night’, wrote Scott, ‘hoping not to wake: but he woke in the morning (17 March). It was blowing a blizzard. He said, “I am just going outside and may be some time”.’ He was never seen again. The self-sacrifice of Oates enabled the survivors to push on, and there was a possibility that, in spite of their extreme exhaustion, they might cover the 30 miles to the food supplies at One Ton depôt. But a heavy blizzard held them up in latitude 79° 40′ S., 11 miles from the depot. Unable to proceed, the three men perished on or about 29 March. A search party, after finding the bodies of Scott, Wilson, and Bowers on 12 November 1912, sought in vain for that of Oates. Near the site of his death was erected a cairn and cross bearing the inscription, ‘Hereabouts died a very gallant gentleman, Captain L. E. G. Oates, of the Inniskilling Dragoons. In March 1912, returning from the Pole, he walked willingly to his death in a blizzard, to try and save his comrades, beset by hardships.’ Oates Land, a part of the Antarctic coast-line in latitude 69° S., longitude 158° E., discovered by the Terra Nova in February 1911, was so named in his honour. There is a bronze portrait medallion of Oates, executed by Lady Scott, at Eton College, and an oil portrait at the family seat in Essex. He was unmarried.

 O'BRIEN, PETER,, of Kilfenora (1842–1914), lord chief justice of Ireland, the fifth son of John O'Brien, of Ballynalacken, co. Clare, M.P. for Limerick 1841–1852, by his wife, Ellen, daughter of Jeremiah Murphy, of Hyde Park, co. Cork, was born at Carnelly House, co. Clare, 29 June 1842. Educated at Clongowes and Trinity College, Dublin, he was called to the Irish bar in 1865, and schooled soundly in law through ‘devilling’ for a great jurist, Christopher Palles (afterwards chief baron, q.v.), and acting as registrar for his uncle, Mr. Justice James O'Brien. Joining the Munster circuit, he soon achieved distinction by cross-examinations instinct with knowledge of the Irish character. He contested Clare unsuccessfully in the whig interest in 1879, and took silk in 1880.

Ireland was then in distraction, crime served politics, English and Irish members frequented trials for agrarian and insurrectionary offences, and distorted them on the platform and in parliament. Every judge was under police protection, prosecutors were pursued by calumny and  415