RRS Discovery
1901 survey vessel
RRS Discovery is a barque-rigged auxiliary steamship built in Dundee, Scotland, for Antarctic research. Launched in 1901, she was the last traditional wooden three-masted ship to be built in the United Kingdom. Her first mission was the British National Antarctic Expedition, carrying Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton on their first, and highly successful, journey to the Antarctic, known as the Discovery Expedition.
After service as a merchant ship before and during the First World War, Discovery was taken into the service of the British government in 1923 to carry out scientific research in the Southern Ocean, becoming the first Royal Research Ship. The ship undertook a two-year expedition – the Discovery Investigations – recording valuable information on the oceans, marine life and being the first scientific investigation into whale populations. From 1929 to 1931 Discovery served as the base for the British Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (BANZARE) under Douglas Mawson. This was a major scientific and territorial quest in what is now the Australian Antarctic Territory.
On her return from the BANZARE, Discovery was moored in London as a static training ship and visitor attraction until 1979. That year she was placed in the care of the Maritime Trust as a museum ship. In 1986 she was moved to Dundee, the city where she was built.
“RRS Discovery” enters the record as 1901 survey vessel. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Discovery, survey and vessel can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“RRS Discovery” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Discovery, survey and vessel provides the most credible route into that argument.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q82257. VIAF identifies the subject as 131268410. The Library of Congress control number is no89012422. Authority coordinates are 56.457, -2.967. 1 of 6 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1901, 1923, 1929 and 1931.
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This entry incorporates text from “RRS Discovery” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.