of Markham the work of the SNAE tended to be ignored or denigrated. Its members were not awarded the prestigious RGS Polar Medals, which were bestowed on members of the Discovery Expedition when it returned home two months after Scotia. Polar Medals would also be awarded after each of Sir Ernest Shackleton's later expeditions, and after Douglas Mawson's Australasian expedition. Bruce fought unavailingly for years to right what he considered a grave injustice, a slight on his country and on his expedition. Some of the aversion of the London geographical establishment may have arisen from Bruce's overt Scottish nationalism, reflected in his own prefatory note to Rudmose Brown's expedition history, in which he said: "While Science was the talisman of the Expedition, Scotland was emblazoned on its flag; and it may be that, in endeavouring to serve humanity by adding another link to the golden chain of science, we have also shown that the nationality of Scotland is a power that must be reckoned with". A significant consequence of the expedition was the establishment by Bruce, in Edinburgh, of the Scottish Oceanographical Laboratory, which was formally opened by Prince Albert of Monaco in 1906. The Laboratory served as a repository for the large collection of biological, zoological and geological specimens amassed during the Scotia voyages, and also during Bruce's earlier Arctic and Antarctic travels. It was also a base from which the scientific reports of the SNAE could be prepared, and it served as general headquarters where polar explorers could meet – Nansen, Amundsen and Shackleton all visited – and where other Scottish polar ventures could be planned and organised. Although Bruce continued to visit the Arctic for scientific and commercial purposes, he never led another Antarctic expedition, his plans for a transcontinental crossing being stifled through lack of funding. The SNAE scientific reports took many years to complete; most were published between 1907 and 1920, but one volume was delayed until 1992. A proposal to convert the Laboratory into a permanent Scottish National Oceanographic Institute failed to come to fruition and, because of difficulties with funding, Bruce was forced to close it down in 1919. He died two years later, aged 54. By this time, the Scotia expedition was barely remembered, even in Scotland, and it has remained overshadowed in polar histories by the more glamorous adventures of Scott and Shackleton. In these histories it is usually confined to