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Bag

Expedition: British Antarctic Expedition 1910-13 (Terra Nova)
Materials: textile, vegetable fibre > string, leather
Dimensions: 485mm (height), 460mm (diameter)

Date: 1910-1913
Ref no: N: 1132

A food depot bag of the type used during the British Antarctic Expedition 1910-13 (Terra Nova). Attached to the bag is a leather label with 'B. Armytage' written in ink. Bertram Armytage was in charge of the ponies on the British Antarctic Expedition 1907-09 (Nimrod), and killed himself in 1910 - the bag may therefore have been used on the Nimrod expedition.

Physical description:

A cylindrical food depot bag made of two fabrics: the base and lower half are of a fawn-coloured bast-fibre textile (to 21cm in height), and the upper half is of a beige-coloured canvas. The two fabrics have been joined together with a felled seam, and there is another felled seam running vertically along the back where the cylinder has been sewn together. All the visible stitching appears to have been done by hand in running stitch using very coarse thread. A faint blue 'C4' has been painted onto the upper half of the bag in large letters (possibly with ink). There is a fraying hole at the top of the bag, very close to the edge. Tied to the side of the bag is a bunch of thick beige string, presumably used to tie the bag closed. Tied to this with thin brown string is a leather label with 'B. Armytage' written in ink. Bertram Armytage was part of Shackleton's British Antarctic Expedition 1907-09 (Nimrod) and committed suicide on 12 March 1910 – this tag may not have been originally associated with this bag.