Dictionary of National Biography, 1927 supplement/Oates, Lawrence Edward Grace
OATES, LAWRENCE EDWARD GRACE (1880–1912), Antarctic explorer, the elder son of William Edward Oates, of Gestingthorpe Hall, Essex, by his wife, Caroline Anne Buckton, was born at Putney 17 March 1880, during his parents’ temporary residence in London. As a boy Oates was delicate, and for three successive winters he was taken by his father to South Africa. After two years at Eton he was educated privately until 1898, when he was gazetted to the 3rd West Yorkshire (militia) regiment. Two years later he joined the army from the militia and was posted to the 6th (Inniskilling) Dragoons, and in 1901 he went on active service in the South African War. He served with distinction, winning a name for his daring, and was mentioned in dispatches for gallantry in the field. Severely wounded in March 1901, he was invalided home for a short time, but returned to the front before the end of the year. Promoted lieutenant in 1902, he served with his regiment in Ireland, next in Egypt, where he became captain and adjutant in 1906, and later in India.
During his military career Oates devoted his spare time to hunting and steeplechasing. He was also a practised yachtsman with a passion for the sea. With these qualifications and a love of adventure which he had inherited from his father, who was a noted big game shot, Oates in 1910 applied for a post on the Antarctic expedition which Captain Robert Falcon Scott, R.N. [q.v.], was organizing. Scott accepted him and put him specially in charge of the nineteen 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.
[Scott's Last Expedition, ed. L. Huxley, 1913; Geographical Journal, 1913; Cavalry Journal, 1913; private information.]