In a letter written many years later, Markham said that on the assumption of the presidency he had felt the need, after the dispute over women, to "restore the Society's good name" by the adoption of some great enterprise. He chose Antarctic exploration as the basis for this mission; there had been no significant Antarctic exploration by any country since Sir James Clark Ross's expedition fifty years previously. A new impetus was provided through a lecture given to the RGS in 1893, by the oceanographer John Murray, calling for "an expedition to resolve the outstanding questions still posed in the south." In response to Murray the RGS and the Royal Society formed a joint committee, to campaign for a British Antarctic expedition.