Henry ‘Birdie’ Bowers is probably best known as one of the four men who died with Captain Scott in 1912 on their return from the South Pole. Crossing the world from London via South Africa, Australia and New Zealand to Antarctica was not, however, his first experience of long-distance travel. When Henry joined Captain Scott’s expedition in 1910 he was an experienced mariner who had circled the globe four times and had, as a Lieutenant in the Royal Indian Marine (the ‘RIM’), recently served in India, Myanmar (then Burma), Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) and the Persian Gulf.
Burma was also an old haunt of Henry’s father, Captain Bowers, an entrepreneurial Scottish sea-captain. In 1868, the Captain took part in an expedition up the 1,000-mile-long Irrawaddy, the aim of which was to re-open an over-land trading route to China. At Mandalay, the royal capital of still-independent upper Burma, the expedition party boarded a ship loaned by the king, accompanied by armed guards, local guides and interpreters – and several elephants. From Bhamo, the highest navigable point on the Irrawaddy, they struggled through jungle and remote tribal areas towards China. When Captain Bowers returned to Rangoon he wrote a formal report full of facts and figures and descriptions of the countryside and tribes of upper Burma, illustrated by his own quirky sketches. During a short visit to Britain he talked about the expedition and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. In 1877, in Singapore, the Captain married an English missionary teacher – two daughters were born in the East but Henry, the couple’s first son, was born in Scotland in 1883, during another of the Captain’s short stays at home.
Henry’s father soon returned to Burma. In 1887 the Captain became ill; his wife and young Henry set out to join him but by the time they reached India the Captain had already died in Mergui, southern Burma. The Captain left few assets but Henry inherited his father’s love of the sea and, like him, became a sailor at an early age, initially serving in the mercantile navy on round-the-world routes.
In 1907, two years after joining the RIM (which ranked only after the Royal Navy in prestige), Henry was posted to Burma. By then the last King of Burma had ceded authority to the British and Henry dealt with all levels of British Empire officials, from Viceroys to harbour-masters. He learned to navigate the famously treacherous sandbanks of the Irrawaddy and ferried troops and their animals as well as the ‘great and good’ and their sometimes demanding spouses and offspring. In his spare time Henry traced part of his father’s route from Bhamo towards the Chinese border, admired magnificent temples, found traces of gold in rivers and clambered down torrent-filled gorges. As he travelled, he sent long descriptive letters and brief postcards to his mother and sister in Scotland – one colour postcard, of a beautiful Burmese girl in native costume, remained tucked inside the pages of Henry’s copy of Captain Bowers’ report on his 1868 expedition, unwritten and un-posted.
When Henry left Burma in 1909 Rangoon felt like a second home to him but he had already set his sights on new postings – and on securing a place on Captain Scott’s recently-announced Terra Nova expedition. In April 1910 he received the longed-for summons from Scott to travel to Antarctica, a largely unmapped continent which had fascinated him since the age of seven – it was time to leave extreme heat and monsoon rains for ice and blizzards.
Lieutenant Henry Bowers RIM, aged 26, was about to become ‘Birdie’ Bowers, Captain Scott’s marvel.
Anne Strathie’s new biography of Henry ‘Birdie’ Bowers, Birdie Bowers: Captain Scott’s Marvel (The History Press) is published in September 2012.
