Cecil Henry Meares was born in County Kilkenny, Ireland in 1877. At the age of nineteen, he began to travel extensively in Europe and Asia, trading in furs in Siberia and observing the Russo-Japanese war. After an interlude in South Africa, where he fought in the Boer War, he resumed his travels in the Far East. He joined the British Antarctic Expedition, 1910-1913 (leader Robert Falcon Scott), and was put in charge of the dogs, travelling to Siberia in 1910 to buy dogs and ponies. Meares was a member of the support party, which accompanied Scott's Polar Party as far as the lower depot of the Beardmore Glacier, before turning back with the dogs on 11 December 1911, accompanied by the Russian dog-driver, Dmitriy Girev.
During the First World War, he joined the Royal Flying Corps, rising to the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and in 1921 took part in a British Air Mission to Japan which earned him the award of the Order of the Sacred Treasure, third class. He continued his travels, eventually settling in British Columbia, where he died on 13 May 1937.
From the guide to the Cecil Meares collection, 1910-1938, (Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge)
