Henry Robertson Bowers

Lieutenant Henry Robertson "Birdie" Bowers (29 July 1883 – 29 March 1912) was one of Robert Falcon Scott's polar party on the ill-fated Terra Nova expedition (1910–1913), all of whom died during their return from the South Pole.

Bowers was born on 29 July 1883 in Greenock, of Scottish descent. After his father died in Rangoon, his mother alone raised him from the age of three with his two older sisters. By January 1896, the family had moved to Streatham, in South London, and lived at 19 Pathfield Road, where Mrs Bowers was still residing in 1899. Whilst living in Streatham, Bowers attended Streatham High School for Boys in Pinfold Road in 1896-7. The building survives today as the Computer Centre behind Streatham Library, on which a plaque was placed by The Streatham Society on 29 March 2012 to commemorate the centenary of his death.

He went to sea first as a cadet in the merchant service, training on HMS Worcester and sailing around the world four times on the Loch Torridon. He then enlisted in the Royal Indian Marine Service in 1905. He was appointed sub-lieutenant, serving in Ceylon and Burma, and commanded a river gunboat on the Irrawaddy. He later served on HMS Fox, preventing gun-running in the Persian Gulf.

Bowers joined Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova expedition in 1908, after having read the accounts of Scott's earlier Discovery expedition, and of Ernest Shackleton's expedition in Nimrod. He had no previous polar experience, but was recommended to Scott by the ex-President of the Royal Geographical Society, Sir Clements Markham, who had been the main organiser of Scott's earlier Discovery expedition. Markham had met Bowers aboard HMS Worcester and had been so impressed with him that Scott invited Bowers to join the expedition without a prior interview. After Bowers fell into a hold when loading the ship (someone had carelessly left the cover off), Scott was less impressed by the short, stout young man. "Well, we're landed with him now, and must make the best of it," said Scott, but he soon changed his mind.

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