Sir, It is indeed poignant that Scott’s letter to Sir Edgar Speyer will be auctioned on March 30 on what is probably the centenary of his death (“Scott’s last lines: we die like men, please care for our wives”, Mar 20).
Sir Edgar was one of the most generous donors to Scott’s Discovery and Terra Nova expeditions yet his fate was poignant too. Despite his work for the expedition and the families left behind, and for numerous artistic charities (and the London Underground), he was hounded from England in 1915 for alleged pro-German sympathies, and he and his family were stripped of their British citizenship on little more than hearsay evidence.
Not for the first or last time, the British media were looking for “guilty men”, and a baronet, born in the US with a foreign-sounding name, seemed fair game.
Peter Mackay
Kincraig, by Kingussie, Highland