Frank B Napier served as captain of the schooner Easonian on the Scottish Spitsbergen Syndicate expedition, sailing to Tromsø in 1920. William Speirs Bruce founded the Scottish Spitsbergen Syndicate in 1909 as a mineral exploration company to locate and assay the potential of the Svalbard archipelago for the exploitation of minerals such as coal, gypsum, iron ore, marble and possibly petroleum. The initial work was to be primarily scientific, but good commercial prospects were held out as incentives to shareholders in the company. Despite seven expeditions between 1909 and 1922, the Syndicate conducted no commercial mining operations.
From the guide to the Frank Napier collection, 1920, (Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge)
