Fonds PR-1260 - Cecil Meares fonds

Cecil Henry Meares was an adventurer, explorer and British naval officer. Son of a British Army officer, born in Ireland, educated in Scotland and England, Meares left school at the age of 17 and travelled extensively in Europe and Asia, picking up languages as he went, driving dog teams and engaging in the fur trade in Siberia, in Peking (Beijing) during the Boxer Uprising, serving in the Boer War, observing the Russo-Japanese War and surveying Manchuria, during which time he may or may not have been engaged in intelligence and diplomatic work. In December 1907 he joined [Lieut.] J.W. Brooke in an expedition to the largely unexplored mountainous Chinese-Tibetan borderland of western Sichuan province. A year later, Brooke was killed by members of the Lolos tribe (Xi ethnic minority) and Meares returned to England where Scott was organizing the British Antarctic Expedition. Meares volunteered. Scott sent Meares to Siberia to obtain dogs and ponies and transport them to New Zealand. As the expedition's dog handler, Meares also engaged in depot-laying, scouting, running stores from camp to camp and putting in a telephone line. In 1910-1911 he was part of Scott's British Antarctic Expedition, accompanying Scott's Polar Party as far as Beardmore Glacier. Recalled by family affairs, he left in 1912, shortly before Scott's party perished. When World War I broke out in 1914, he served in the Corps of Interpreters and as a Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve officer in the Royal Naval Air Service. In 1915 he married Annie Christina Spengler. After the war he went to Japan as part of the British Air Mission, advising the Japanese Naval Air Service, for which he was presented with the Order of the Sacred Treasure Third Class and a sword. Sometime thereafter he and his wife decided to move to Victoria although they also maintained a cottage in Santa Barbara. A 1939 article in the Victoria Colonist credits Meares with introducing the Himalayan blue poppy (Meconopsis baileyi) to Victoria. He died in Victoria in 1937. After the death of his wife, in 1974, souvenirs of his travels were put up for auction.