William Speirs Bruce FRSE (1 August 1867 – 28 October 1921) was a British naturalist, polar scientist and oceanographer who organised and led the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition (SNAE, 1902–04) to the South Orkney Islands and the Weddell Sea.

Bruce later founded the Scottish Oceanographical Laboratory in Edinburgh, but his plans for a transcontinental Antarctic march via the South Pole were abandoned because of lack of public and financial support.

His failure to mount any major exploration ventures after the SNAE is usually attributed to his lack of public relations skills, powerful enemies, and his Scottish nationalism.

In recent years, following the centenary of the Scottish Expedition, efforts have been made to give fuller recognition to his role in the history of scientific polar exploration.

The six-week courses, at the recently established Scottish Marine Station at Granton on the Firth of Forth, were under the direction of Patrick Geddes and John Arthur Thomson, and included sections on botany and practical zoology.

[5] This enabled him to maintain contact with mentors such as Geddes and Thomson, and also gave him the opportunity to work during his free time in the Edinburgh laboratories where specimens brought back from the Challenger expedition were being examined and classified.

[citation needed] Windward arrived at Cape Flora on 25 July where Bruce found that Jackson's expedition party had been joined by Fridtjof Nansen and his companion Hjalmar Johansen.

The two Norwegians had been living on the ice for more than a year since leaving their ship Fram for a dash to the North Pole, and it was pure chance that had brought them to the one inhabited spot among thousands of square miles of Arctic wastes.

According to Jackson: "It is no pleasant job to dabble in icy-cold water, with the thermometer some degrees below zero, or to plod in the summer through snow, slush and mud many miles in search of animal life, as I have known Mr Bruce frequently to do".

[18] On his return from Franz Josef Land in 1897, Bruce worked in Edinburgh as an assistant to his former mentor John Arthur Thomson, and resumed his duties at the Ben Nevis observatory.

In March 1898 he received an offer to join Major Andrew Coats on a hunting voyage to the Arctic waters around Novaya Zemlya and Spitsbergen, in the private yacht Blencathra.

But his scientific work was unabated: "I have been taking 4-hourly observations in meteorology and temperature of the sea surface [...] have tested salinity with Buchanan's hydrometer; my tow-nets [...] have been going almost constantly.

[27] When Princesse Alice ran aground on a submerged rock and appeared stranded, Prince Albert instructed Bruce to begin preparations for a winter camp, in the belief that it might be impossible for the ship to escape.

[29] Perhaps, due to Bruce's secretive nature presenting limited details even among his circle of close friends and colleagues, little information about the wedding has been recorded by his biographers.

[32] Bruce's chosen life as an explorer, his unreliable sources of income and his frequent extended absences, all placed severe strains on the marriage, and the couple became estranged around 1916.

[33] On 15 March 1899 Bruce wrote to Sir Clements Markham at the RGS, offering himself for the scientific staff of the National Antarctic Expedition, then in its early planning stages.

[citation needed] On 21 March 1900 Bruce reminded Markham that he had applied a year earlier, and went on to reveal that he "was not without hopes of being able to raise sufficient capital whereby I could take out a second British ship".

[36][C] Bruce replied by return, denying rivalry, and asserting: "If my friends are prepared to give me money to carry out my plans I do not see why I should not accept it [...] there are several who maintain that a second ship is highly desirable".

[39] With financial support from the Coats family, Bruce had acquired a Norwegian whaler, Hekla, which he transformed into a fully equipped Antarctic research ship, renamed Scotia.

[citation needed] This expedition assembled a large collection of animal, marine and plant specimens, and carried out extensive hydrographic, magnetic and meteorological observations.

[53][55] In 1914 discussions began toward finding more permanent homes, both for Bruce's collection and, following the death that year of oceanographer Sir John Murray, for the specimens and library of the Challenger expedition.

[62] Finally accepting that his venture would not take place, he gave generous support and advice to Ernest Shackleton, who in 1913 announced plans, similar to Bruce's, for his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition.

Bruce had now fixed his main hopes on the discovery of oil, but scientific expeditions in 1919 and 1920 failed to provide evidence of its presence; substantial new deposits of coal and iron ore were discovered.

[76] After Markham's death in 1916 Bruce sent a long letter to his Member of Parliament, Charles Price, detailing Sir Clements's malice towards him and the Scottish expedition, ending with a heartfelt cry on behalf of his old comrades: "Robertson[H] is dying without his well won white ribbon!

"[85] Rudmose Brown's biography was published in 1923, and in the same year a joint committee of Edinburgh's learned societies instituted the Bruce Memorial Prize, an award for young polar scientists.

This expedition predicted "dramatic conclusions" relating to global warming from its research, and saw this contribution as a "fitting tribute to Britain's forgotten polar hero, William Speirs Bruce".

[50] An hour-long BBC television documentary on Bruce presented by Neil Oliver in 2011 contrasted his meticulous science with his rivals' aim of enhancing imperial prestige.

[51] The same author considers reasons why Bruce's efforts to capitalise on this success met with failure, and suggests a combination of his shy, solitary, uncharismatic nature[87] and his "fervent" Scottish nationalism.

[88] Bruce seemingly lacked public relations skills and the ability to promote his work, after the fashion of Scott and Shackleton;[51] a lifelong friend described him as being "as prickly as the Scottish thistle itself".

John Arthur Thomson, who had known Bruce since Granton, wrote of him when reviewing Rudmose Brown's 1923 biography: "We never heard him once grumble about himself, though he was neither to hold or bend when he thought some injustice was being done to, or slight cast on, his men, on his colleagues, on his laboratory, on his Scotland.