Bernard Day was born in Wymondham, Leicestershire, in 1884, and as his father was a successful architect and engineer, it's little surprise that Bernard ended up working at the forefront of early automobile design at the Arrol-Johnston motor company. It was in that capacity that he first went to the Antarctic, tending the Arrol-Johnston car that Shackleton took on the Nimrod Expedition in 1907-9.
The car – built to a familiar model, four wheels and all – proved to be unsuitable for travelling anywhere but the hard level sea ice, but Scott was convinced that motorised transport was the future for Antarctic travel, and was developing some more heavy-duty vehicles in the shape of caterpillar-tread tractors. These would come to be known as the “motor sledges.”
Scott's partner in this development was the engineer from the Discovery Expedition, Reginald Skelton, but Teddy Evans connived to get Skelton excluded from the Terra Nova Expedition, citing questions of seniority. So back came Day, this time in charge of the experimental technology.
That wasn't all he did, though – he devised and installed the hut's combined heating/ventilation system, and set up the acetylene plant and piping which would provide light through the months of winter darkness. Aside from that he was a dependable resource for any bit of cunning artifice that needed making or mending, and adapting existing equipment to new purposes, such as turning one of the meteorologist's engines into a lathe. He also devised a “go-cart” out of a simple chassis with four bicycle wheels attached, which was used for carting loads over the sea ice, and bringing treats back from the Nimrod hut at Cape Royds, just north of Cape Evans.
As the first winter faded into spring, Day's attention was brought back to his main charge, and the motor sledges were dug out from their snowdrift and got, with some work, into something approaching a workable state. Day and Scott seem to have been on opposite ends of the spectrum of optimism for their success:
June 19th, 1911 To-night Day has given us a lecture on his motor sledge. He seems very hopeful of success, but I fear is rather more sanguine in temperament than his sledge is reliable in action. I wish I could have more confidence in his preparations, as he is certainly a delightful companion.
September 10th, 1911 ... my own view [as to the motors] is the most cautious one held in our party. Day is quite convinced he will go a long way and is prepared to accept much heavier weights than I have given him …
In the end, Scott turned out to be closer to the truth, and his decision not to rely on them in his plans was a wise one. The motors showed great promise, but it was hard to keep the right balance of temperature for their air-cooled engines neither to freeze nor overheat, and without a fully-equipped workshop or access to new supplies, repairs and redesigns could only go so far. Nevertheless, after a couple of false starts, the Motor Party – Day, Hooper, and Lashly, with Teddy in command – took off in advance of the main party and hauled a large amount of supplies 50 miles down the southern road. Once the motors finally died, the men dragged the remainder themselves to the appointed meeting place south of One Ton, and depoted them under an enormous cairn they named Mt Hooper. When the main party caught up with them, Scott sent Day and Hooper back to base, taking Teddy and Lashly on for the polar journey.
With the motor sledges played out, Day returned to civilisation with the ship when she visited base in early 1912. He appears not to have got much farther than Australia, as he married Anne Womersley in New South Wales in 1913, and more or less disappears from the record – he and Mrs Day turn up on a London-to-Freemantle ship in the 1930s, and at some point he donated his Antarctic photo album to the Discovery museum, but the rest of the time they appear to have been quietly ensconced in Lane Cove, Sydney. Here's a confusing thing, though: most sources say he died in 1934 – one even goes so far as to say it was, ironically, in a street accident – but no record of such event turns up then; however, there is a funeral notice for a Bernard Cartmell Day in a Brisbane paper in 1952. As it can't be that common a name I can only assume it's the same person, but how he filled all those decades is, as yet, a mystery to me …
Drawing him was a similar grapple with vagueness – he seems to have a different face for indoors and outdoors, to start with, and nothing to hang your hat on, caricature-wise. After the initial grasping at straws, I decided to try leaning the photographic record against how he's described by others: He's most explicitly referred to as “gaunt”, and Atch records he was nicknamed “The Bifurcated Rivet” as he used a lot of them and resembled them in physique. Partway through I had second thoughts and tried the old medium-switching trick; I think I ended up more or less where I started but I feel better about it, and on the last page I got one of those magic drawings that seemed to draw itself and deflect all attempts to ruin it, so it was worth the trouble, I think!
Even more thanks than usual to Expedition Genealogist Andy Airriess, whose diligent searching and record-fu has literally doubled my knowledge of Day's non-Antarctic life. Huzzah for the Internet!
