Bruce, William S. (William Speirs), 1867-1921

William Speirs Bruce was born in London of Scottish parents in 1867. He was educated at Norfolk County School, England and enrolled as a medical student at the University of Edinburgh, where renowned Scottish physicists, chemists and oceanographers supervised him. In 1892, he was recommended for the post of surgeon and naturalist on board Balaena during the British Whaling Exploration (Dundee), 1892-1893. The expedition was organized to investigate the commercial possibilities of whaling in the Antarctic, although no right whales were successfully caught. The expedition did, however, fire Bruce with an ambition to pursue further polar studies.

Between 1895 and 1896, Bruce worked at the meteorological observatory on Ben Nevis. In 1897 he joined the Jackson-Harmsworth Arctic Expedition, 1894-1897 (leader Frederick George Jackson) to Franz Josef Land as naturalist. After the expedition, he continued his work at the Ben Nevis station, later joining private expeditions to Novaya Zemlya and Svalbard.

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