Prince Edward, the third son and fourth (and youngest) child of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, was the first member of the royal family to visit Pole, Scott Base, and McMurdo, although his father, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, had visited British bases on the Antarctic Peninsula during IGY. (Later, Princess Anne visited Scott Base and McMurdo from 7-10 February 2002; she dedicated a plaque commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Discovery Hut...was stranded briefly by weather at the Terra Nova hut at Cape Evans, and had to return home a bit early because of Princess Margaret's death on 9 February. She later visited Rothera aboard the HMS Endurance in January 2007.)
Edward, born in 1964, was 18 at the time of his Antarctic trip; at the time he was third in line of succession to the British throne (currently he is #8). After graduating from secondary school in the UK in 1982, he spent two terms as a house tutor and junior master (positions perhaps similar to resident advisor) at a private boys' school in Wanganui, New Zealand.
Edward flew to the ice on Thursday 9 December aboard a RNZAF C-130, and visited Pole for a few hours on the 11th. I'm not sure which members of the DV group traveled to Pole, but the party from New Zealand included Robert Thomson, superintendent of New Zealand's DSIR Antarctic Division; Air Commodore D. M. Crooks (deputy chief of air staff); Colin Monteath, field operations officer for the Antarctic Division; and a rather solid New Zealand policeman who was providing security. Before the Pole trip, Edward climbed Observation Hill with Colin Monteath.
After the Pole trip, Prince Edward visited Vanda, inspected other science projects, and visited McMurdo. He returned to Christchurch on 15 December.
