Name RRS Discovery

1.      What is the vessel’s ability to demonstrate history in her physical fabric?

Evidence for designs, functions, techniques, processes, styles, customs and habits or uses and associations in relation to events and people.  How early, intact or rare these features are may impact on significance.

DISCOVERY was designed by Sir William Smith for the National Antarctic Expedition of 1901-04 and modelled on the lines of the Dundee-built HMS DISCOVERY that went to the Arctic in 1875-76. Following the traditional three masted wooden sailing ships and Dundee whaling vessels from the latter part of the nineteenth century, DISCOVERY was carvel built with a full hull form, and slight tumblehome, and sheathed in Greenheart timber. She is the last surviving example in the UK of a ship with salt boxes. She was fitted with coal-fired auxiliary reciprocating 3-cylinder 450 hp steam engines made by Gourlays. However, she was rigged as a barque and had to rely primarily on sail because the coal bunkers did not have sufficient capacity to take the ship on long voyages. DISCOVERY has seen many different phases during her working life and was adapted for each of these. All the accommodation below the upper deck was removed in 1905 and the laboratories on the upper deck were used for officers’ accommodation, with a saloon between them and a bridge over them. The capstan was moved onto the fo’c’sle head, and the crew put in the foc’s’le. After the Second World War, an additional mess deck was built in the engine room, and the boiler room and bunkers were used as training spaces. In 1951, the freshwater tanks were taken out and replaced with crew accommodation. In 1953, all remaining original accommodation, except the wardroom, was stripped out. A new set of yards, built to the original drawings, were made from New Forest trees, and crossed in 1983. She was restored to her 1920s configuration in 1986. The 2007-09 restoration and conservation project included remedial work to repair decayed and damaged areas of the hull and decks. This was designed to open more areas of the ship below decks to the public. This included the engine room, the bosun’s cabin and the whole length of the hold areas which were restored and interpreted. The ship’s temperature and humidity control systems, along with the bilge pumping arrangements, were improved to aid preventative conservation. Her masts were restored as part of a 2015 project.

2.      What are the vessel’s associational links for which there is no physical evidence?

Associations with people or places.  Off-ship research.

DISCOVERY is one of the last surviving three-masted wooden ships built in the United Kingdom. She was the first ship in the world to be designed specifically for scientific research in the Poles, with all earlier vessels having been adapted for this use. She is therefore an outstanding example of a vessel constructed for a specific purpose. She is principally associated with Robert Falcon Scott, leader of the National Antarctic Expedition, as well as with Ernest Shackleton for whom the voyage was the first of four famous Antarctic journeys. DISCOVERY is the inspiration for many polar explorers and scientific researchers. In 1905, DISCOVERY was sold to the Hudson Bay Company and used to carry supplies to the Trading Post in the Hudson Bay, bringing back furs.

DISCOVERY was involved in three areas of pioneering research. She was built for science, specifically the first extensive scientific exploration of the Antarctic land mass – the last continent to be explored in the World. The DISCOVERY undertook the 1901-04 British National Antarctic Expedition, to carry out scientific research and provided a major contribution to the understanding of the Antarctic Continent. In 1925 until 1927 she was used for the Discovery (Oceanographic) Expedition, the first maritime research undertaken to explore the natural habitat of the whale and the exploitation of the mammal as a resource. This grew to become the National Oceanographic Centre and successive Royal Research ships. She was then lent to Sir Douglas Mawson for his British, Australian, and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (BANZARE) voyages 1929-31, an extensive survey and biological research of the land- masses and oceans of the South Atlantic and Antarctic in which almost a third of the Antarctic coastline was charted for the first time. Many places in Antarctica are named after members of the crew from the 1901-4 Expedition and the BANZARE voyages.

In the First World War DISCOVERY carried munitions and food for the French Government. In 1916 she was refitted and went south to pick up Shackleton and the crew of ENDURANCE who were stranded on Elephant Island; she reached Montevideo before hearing of their rescue. From 1931-1979 DISCOVERY was berthed by Temple Tube Station on the Thames as the headquarters, accommodation ship and training centre for Sea Scouts. In the Second World War DISCOVERY became the Headquarters of the River Emergency Service. During the Festival of Britain in 1951 an exhibition on Antarctica was mounted in the ship, and she was opened to the public. Between 1952-1980 the London Division of the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve used her as accommodation for the Admiral Commanding Reserves.

Today, DISCOVERY has huge importance for the city of Dundee where she was constructed at the Panmure Shipyard that had a tradition of building Scottish whaling ships which were used in the ice-pack areas of the North and South Poles. She returned to Dundee in 1986 and moved to her permanent home in 1992.  She was purchased by Dundee Heritage Trust in 1995. DISCOVERY is one of the key items in the Discovery Point Museum Collection, which has been recognised as nationally significant by the Scottish Government. She is important to Dundee culture and her history has been documented extensively in books such as Voyages of Discovery by Ann Savours, as well as within Discovery Point Museum itself.

DISCOVERY was recorded on the National Register of Historic Vessels in 1996 and given the status of inclusion in the National Historic Fleet.

3.      How does the vessel’s shape or form combine and contribute to her function?

Overall aesthetic impact of the vessel, her lines, material she was built from and her setting.  Does she remain in her working environment?

DISCOVERY’s massively built reinforced wooden hull, constructed with oak beams, pitch pine planking and green heart sheathing, was designed to withstand being frozen into the ice. She rolled badly in the open sea, as the flat shallow hull, built with no protuberances to allow her to work well in ice, provided minimal stability in heavy seas. DISCOVERY was also designed with a lifting propeller and rudder, thus being able to be steered and steamed to prevent ice damage or if she lost her rudder post. She had iron-shod bows which were severely raked, so that when ramming the ice they would ride up over the margin and crush the ice with deadweight. Internally, she was fitted with scientific labs designed for research in the Poles. To be sure of complete accuracy, an exclusion zone round the magnetic observatory was created, with no iron or steel allowed within 30 feet of the area. DISCOVERY is an impressive sight preserved on permanent display as a static floating exhibit in the city where she was built.

Source: Dundee Heritage Trust, December 2023