The 1956 Royal Yacht Britannia expedition to the Antarctic Circle
In August 1956 the Royal Yacht Britannia sailed from Portsmouth round the Cape of Good Hope to Mombasa where Princess Margaret embarked for a tour of the islands off the coast of East Africa.
On completion of the seaborne leg of her tour the Princess disembarked, and Britannia collected the Duke of Edinburgh to begin a lengthy voyage to Australia and then on to the Southern Ocean.
Accompanying the Duke were two guests, Sir Raymond Priestley, Acting Director of the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey who as a young geologist had been on expeditions with both Sir Ernest Shackleton and Captain Robert Scott, and the artist Edward Seago (1910-1974), a great favourite of the royal family, particularly the Queen Mother.
Seago's Antarctic Dusk
Seago was born in 1910, in Norwich and although briefly studying with the painter Sir Alfred Munnings, was largely self-taught. His style has been described as late Impressionistic with carefully observed colour modulation and a grounded sense of realism.
Seago's output from the 1956 voyage included images of the Falkland Islands, South Georgia, the whaling industry and icebergs in the Southern Ocean, such as the painting seen here.
Crossing the Antarctic Circle
Britannia arrived in Lyttleton, New Zealand, on 15 December and shortly afterwards sailed for The Chatham Islands. On Christmas Day, despite a very rough sea, Prince Philip made a live speech on the BBC’s Christmas Day broadcast from around the World and on 29 December Britannia was joined by the Ice Patrol Ship HMS Protector.
As 1956 came to a close, the two ships crossed the Antarctic Circle. As they approached the pack ice, the Duke and his guests transferred to the Royal Research Ship John Briscoe which took them to the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey base on Graham Land, Antarctic Peninsula. The weather was mixed but when it was clear the snow-capped mountains and glaciers of the southern continent could be seen in all their splendour.
Back onboard Britannia the Prince and his guests visited Port Stanley in the Falklands before sailing on to South Georgia where on the 9 January 1957 (the anniversary of the day, in 1909, that Shackleton reached his farthest south in latitude) they visited the grave of Sir Ernest Shackleton at Grytviken.
Leaving South Georgia, Britannia headed for home via Tristan de Cunha, St Helena, Ascension Island and Gibraltar. They arrived in Portsmouth in February 1957 after a voyage of 40,000 miles.
Further reading
Goodman, Jean. "Seago, Edward Brian [Ted] (1910–1974), landscape painter and writer." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.