Bruce. There were regular visits to nearby Kensington Gardens, and sometimes to the Natural History Museum; according to Samuel Bruce these outings first ignited young William's interest in life and nature. In 1879, at the age of 12, William was sent to a progressive boarding school, Norfolk County School (later Watts Naval School) in the village of North Elmham, Norfolk. He remained there until 1885, and then spent two further years at University College School, Hampstead, preparing for the matriculation examination that would admit him to the medical school at University College London (UCL). He succeeded at his third attempt, and was ready to start his medical studies in the autumn of 1887. Edinburgh During mid-1887, Bruce travelled north to Edinburgh to attend a pair of vacation courses in natural sciences. The six-week courses, at the recently established Scottish Marine Station at Granton on the Firth of Forth, were under the direction of Patrick Geddes and John Arthur Thomson, and included sections on botany and practical zoology. The experience of Granton, and the contact with some of the foremost contemporary natural scientists, convinced Bruce to stay in Scotland. He abandoned his place at UCL, and enrolled instead in the medical school at the University of Edinburgh. This enabled him to maintain contact with mentors such as Geddes and Thomson, and also gave him the opportunity to work during his free time in the Edinburgh laboratories where specimens brought back from the Challenger expedition were being examined and classified. Here he worked under Dr John Murray and his assistant John Young Buchanan, and gained a deeper understanding of oceanography and invaluable experience in the principles of scientific investigation. First voyages Dundee Whaling Expedition The Dundee Whaling Expedition, 1892–93, was an attempt to investigate the commercial possibilities of whaling in Antarctic waters by locating a source of right whales in the region. Scientific observations and oceanographic research would also be carried out in the four whaling ships: Balaena, Active, Diana and Polar Star. Bruce was recommended to the expedition by Hugh Robert Mill, an acquaintance from Granton who was now librarian to the Royal Geographical Society in London. Although it would finally curtail his medical studies, Bruce did not hesitate; with William Gordon Burn Murdoch as an assistant he took up his duties on Balaena under Capt. Alexander Fairweather. The four ships sailed from Dundee on 6 September 1892. The relatively short