Australia's most famous Antarctic explorer, Sir
Douglas Mawson, was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, in the United Kingdom
on 5 May 1882. In 1886 he emigrated with his family to Sydney, where
he was educated at Fort Street High School, and later (1902) graduated
from the University of Sydney
with a BE in Mining Engineering at the age of 19. Following this,
Mawson undertook a BSc and graduated with Honours in Geology (1905).
Mawson's early research included studies on the
radioactivity and occurrence of radium in Australian minerals, and
a six-month geological exploration of the New Hebrides. In 1905, at
the age of 23, he was appointed lecturer in Mineralogy and Petrology
at the University of Adelaide,
where his early work included the identification of uranium at Mt
Painter, the discovery of davidite at Radium Hill, and geological
investigations at Mt Painter, Olary and Broken Hill: work later described
as "outstanding contributions to economic geology and mineralogy".
Following his discovery of Sturtian Tillite at
Olary in 1906, Mawson's interest in conditions of sedimentation during
the ice age were roused, and he therefore welcomed an invitation to
join Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic Expedition in 1907. In the party
of his teacher and mentor, Professor (later Sir) Edgeworth David,
Mawson made the first ascent of Mt Erebus and the first journey to
the South Magnetic Pole area. He contributed to Shackleton's scientific
reports with notes on Ice and Snow, Mineralogy and Chemistry, Meterological
Optics, the Magnetic Pole and the Aurora.
The Shackleton expedition left Mawson eager to
explore the coast of Antarctica that lay immediately south of Australia.
A year after his return, he began planning his own expedition (the
Australasian Antarctic Expedition), which arrived in Antarctica in
1912. Three bases were established ñ a main one at Cape Denison under
Mawson and one at Macquarie Island under G F Ainsworth, with a third
on the Shackleton Ice Shelf under Frank Wild. After wintering over
in a land where the wind force could sometimes reach 200 mph, five
sledging parties finally set out from Cape Denison in the summer of
1912-13 to map and investigate the eastern and western coastlines
and the interior towards the South Magnetic Pole. Mawson's party consisted
of himself and two companions, Lieutenant Belgrave Ninnis and Dr Xavier
Mertz, together with all available husky dogs to enable faster and
further travel, and the intention was to explore the area east of
Cape Denison, and to sight, if possible, Oates Land.
In just over one month, the party had travelled
300 miles and crossed two huge glaciers (subsequently named the Ninnis
and Mertz glaciers); then disaster struck. Ninnis, together with the
rear sledge, the strongest dogs, the main tent and most of the food,
plunged hundreds of feet down a crevasse. Mawson and Mertz were left
with little food for themselves and none for the remaining dogs, and
had 300 miles to traverse to return to base in time to meet the ship
that was to return the expedition to Australia.
Over the ensuing weeks, they had to face increasing
weakness and illness, dangerous terrain and blizzards that sometimes
kept them pinned to one spot for days at a time. As each dog weakened,
it had to be killed to provide food for both the remaining dogs and
the two men, with disastrous consequences for the latter. It is now
known that, by consuming the husky livers, Mawson and Mertz were exposed
to toxic doses of vitamin A, with resultant symptoms including dizziness,
nausea, shedding of skin and hair, and, in the case of Mertz, dementia
and death within weeks.
At the time of Mertz's death, Mawson was still
100 miles from base, but fought his way on in the hope that if he
reached a point close enough to Cape Denison his records and notes
might at least be found with his body. Survival became an actual prospect
when he discovered a cairn with a stash of food left by a search party,
and after further delays to wait out a blizzard, Mawson finally reached
Cape Denison.
Here, another set-back occurred: blizzard-enforced
delays had left the collecting ship with only enough fuel to pick
up Wild's party at the base on the Shackleton Ice Shelf and return
to Australia. Fortunately, the party at Cape Denison had enough food
for a year's stay and a doctor was available to tend Mawson. The enforced
second winter at Cape Denison did, however, prove fortuitous: Mawson's
condition on arrival at the base was so bad that it was unlikely he
would have survived the return sea voyage across the Southern Ocean.
On his return to Australia in 1914, Mawson was
knighted, and published his narrative, Home
of the Blizzard, in 1915. The Australasian Antarctic Expedition
had accomplished the most comprehensive scientific and geographical
work on the Antarctic up to that time, and the scientific reports
of the expedition filled 22 volumes.
Following war work in Europe during 1916-19, Mawson
returned to Adelaide where he was appointed Professor of Geology in
1920. He retained his intense interest in Antarctica, and in 1929-30
commanded the British, Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Expedition
to secure the British title to the area stretching from King George
V Land to Enderby Land. Kemp and Enderby Lands were visited in the
summer of 1929-30, when MacRobertson Land was also discovered.
During the summer of 1930-31, Mawson charted the
coast of King George V Land, and the Banzare Coast and Princess Elizabeth
Land were discovered. The official culmination of Mawson's Antarctic
exploration came in 1933 when, under the Antarctic Territory Acceptance
Act, the Commonwealth Government assumed control of nearly two and
a half million square miles of Antarctica.
Acknowledged as a world authority on many questions
relating to the Antarctic, Mawson's Antarctic interests extended from
exploration and scientific discovery to conservation, and as a result
of his efforts, the Tasmanian Government refused sealing licences
on Macquarie Island after 1919, and in 1933 proclaimed the island
a sanctuary for the native wildlife of the sub-Antarctic. Mawson was
also involved in schemes to restrict whaling and thus prevent extermination
of whales.
In 1947, the Antarctic Planning Committee was established
to advise the government on Antarctic policy, and Mawson was appointed
as one of the Committee's chief authorities.
Mawson's achievements in Antarctic exploration
have to some extent overshadowed his accomplishments as a distinguished
scientist and scholar, whose work included pioneer studies in the
geology of Melanesia (through exploration of the geology of the New
Hebrides); studies on the pre-Cambrian and later glacial deposits
of South Australia ñ work which led him to the Antarctic and attracted
world-wide attention; and associated mineralogical and petrological
investigations.
Among the many honours Mawson received in addition
to his knighthood, were the Royal Geographical
Society's Antarctic Medal (1909) and Founder's Medal (1915); the
King's Polar Medal (two bars); the Gold Medals of the American, Chicago
and Paris Geographical Societies; the Bigsby Medal of the Geological Society of London
(1919); and the
Mueller Medal> of the Australian and New Zealand Association for
the Advancement of Science (ANZAAS)
(1930). Mawson was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society of London in 1923 and subsequently became a foundation
member of the Australian
Academy of Science. From 1923-24 he was President of the Royal
Society of South Australia, and after serving as President of the
Geography Section of ANZAAS in 1920 and the Geology Section in 1926,
he served as President of ANZAAS from 1932-37.
Mawson has appeared on the Australian $100 paper
bank note, but a more lasting recognition has been the naming of Australia's
first Antarctic research base in his honour. Mawson is also commemorated
in the Mawson
Lecture and Medal for earth sciences, awarded biennially by the
Australian Academy of Science (AAS).
When Sir Douglas Mawson died, aged 76, on 14 October
1958, he was accorded a State Funeral. The Australian Academy of Science
obituary described Mawson as "a man in whom scholarship, leadership
and courage were generously combined to make a great Australian".
