Xerox copy of the diary of the zoologist E. R. Gunther during his research into whaling on the sailing ship DISCOVERY and WILLIAM SCORESBY from Portsmouth to the Canaries, Ascension, South Africa, Tristan da Cunha, South Georgia, the Falklands, Bouvet Island, Gough Island, Angola, French Congo, Annobon Island and the Cape Verdes, July 1925 to September 1927.

Diary is in three parts: Box 1 contains two parts; box 2 contains one part.

Permission to quote or reproduce images for publication (note the NMM diary is a copy and so copying is not permitted) from the diary is required from the Trustees of the late E. R. Gunther. Images for publication must come from the original diary and not the NMM xerox copy.

Administrative / biographical background
Gunther was interviewed for the position of junior zoologist while still at Cambridge University, on 20 March 1924. He took part as one of two leading scientists in the 1925 to 1927 research expedition in the DISCOVERY and the WILLIAM SCORESBY, surveying plankton and marking whales. His grandfather, great uncle and father had all distinguished themselves as marine biologists and so Eustace Rolfe went to sea in 1925. The expedition was fraught with many errors, mistakes, alterations and the changing the role of zoologist to hydrographer, the mission was a success and in recognition of his work, the coastal current off Chile was named the Gunther Current. Between 1927 and 1930, Gunther worked at the Natural History Museum (NHM), analysing the results of the plankton survey undertaken previously.