Douglas Mawson
Sir Douglas Mawson was a true pioneer, venturing into unknown hostile territory and almost losing his own life in the cause of science.
 Douglas Mawson in 1914 after receiving his knighthood. Photo: unknown |
He studied the geology of Mittagong with T. Griffith Taylor, later to make his mark in Antarctic science, and during this time came under the influence of Professor Edgeworth David, a leader in Australian geology.
Mawson became lecturer in mineralogy and petrology at the University of Adelaide in 1905, describing radioactive minerals from Radium Hill and undertaking extensive fieldwork in the Flinders Ranges, where he studied past glacial activity, and Barrier Range, including Broken Hill. It was this latter study which brought him into contact with GD Delprat, a mining engineer, whose daughter Paquita he would marry in 1914.
In November 1907 Mawson met Ernest Shackleton in Adelaide with a view to joining Shackleton's proposed British Antarctic Expedition to study glaciation in action. Shackleton appointed him physicist for the expedition, departed that summer for the Ross Sea. Mawson was 26. Also on the expedition was Mawson's mentor, Edgeworth David.
 Map showing the area covered by the AAE, including the tracks of the Aurora and most of the deep sea soundings. Published by the Royal Geographical Society in the Geographical Journal 1914. click on map to enlarge |
Back in Australia, Mawson determined to return to the icy continent to explore the coast to the west of Cape Adare, due south of Australia. He contacted Robert Scott, who was planning an attempt to reach the South Pole and invited Mawson to join his South Pole sledging party. But Mawson the scientist had no interest in such non-scientific endeavours. He turned to Shackleton, who though interested was unable to raise the finance needed. Mawson resolved to lead his own expedition.
After a prodigious fund-raising effort, he raised the capital and put together the equipment, supplies and men for his own 'Australasian Antarctic Expedition', which departed Hobart aboard the ship Aurora, captained by John King Davis, in December 1911. On Macquarie Island he left a small communications crew who would relay the first wireless signals from Antarctica to the world.
Mawson set up two Antarctic exploring bases, one on Shackleton Ice Shelf under Frank Wild and the main base under his leadership at Cape Denison in Commonwealth Bay, south of Tasmania. At each base he and his men undertook a series of carefully-planned scientific investigations, including intensive land exploration along the coast and into the hinterland. The Commonwealth Bay base he later called 'The Home of the Blizzard' because of its exceptionally powerful and persistent katabatic winds.
Mawson himself led the 'Far Eastern' sledging expedition with Belgrave Ninnis, an English army lieutenant, and Xavier Mertz, a Swiss doctor. The expedition was five weeks old and 500 km out when disaster struck: Ninnis, with one of the two sleds and most of the party's supplies, was lost down an immense crevasse. Mertz was to die on the return journey, possibly from Vitamin A poisoning from eating the livers of husky dogs. But Mawson survived after an epic solo journey during which he had to haul himself on the end of a rope out of a deep crevasse. It is one of the great polar stories of survival.
Mawson returned to the base only to see his ship Aurora on the horizon on its way to collect the Western party under Wild. The ship was unable to return because of the risk of being beset by ice with the brief summer season nearing its close. Mawson remained behind with six companions to recover from his ordeal before returning the following summer.
On Mawson's return to Adelaide, he was treated as a hero by delighted crowds. His great achievement as an Antarctic leader and scientist were later recognised with a knighthood.
 Douglas Mawson and Francesca (Paquita) Delprat on their wedding day, 31 March 1914. Photo: Unkown |
Mawson returned to the Antarctic twice more, in 1929 and 1931, as leader of the first and second British, Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expeditions (BANZARE), concentrating on oceanography, Antarctic and subantarctic marine biology, and Antarctic coastal exploration to the west of Shackleton Ice Shelf. Again, Mawson's captain was John King Davis, and the ship was Scott's old vessel, Discovery.
Like the Australasian Antarctic Expedition before it, BANZARE was an immense scientific success, producing an enormous amount of data about the Southern Ocean to build on the already-significant Challenger expedition some 60 years earlier. The territorial exploration also had its rewards. Mawson claimed for Britain all the land of East Antarctica between longitude 40 deg. E and 160 deg. E with the exception of the small sliver of Adelie Land, claimed by France. The territorial claim - 42 percent of all Antarctica with an area the size of Australia without Queensland - was transferred to Australia in 1935.
Sir Douglas Mawson lived out his life in Adelaide, working as Professor of Geology at the University of Adelaide and devoting his leisure time to family, farming and forestry. He became a dedicated conservationist, arguing forcefully and effectively for the protection of Macquarie Island wildlife from hunters.
He also became a persistent lobbyist for a permanent Australian presence in the Antarctic. In 1947 his efforts were realised with the dispatch of the first Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions (ANARE) to Heard and Macquarie Islands. Mawson joined the ANARE Executive Planning Committee, which he continued to serve into his old age.
ANARE finally reached the continent of Antarctica in 1954 where a station was established on Horseshoe Harbour, Mac. Robertson Land. It was named, fittingly, Mawson.
Sir Douglas Mawson died in 1958 at the age of 76.
In brief:
Sir Douglas Mawson
(5 May 1882 to 14 October 1958)
Nationality and occupation
Australian Antarctic explorer and geologist
Achievements
1907, joined Shackleton's British Antarctic Expedition as geologist, ascending Mt Erebus and reaching the South Pole
- 1911-14, led the Australian Antarctic Expedition on Aurora to King George 5 Land and Adelie Land, setting up scientific bases on Macquarie Island, at Cape Denison (later known as Mawson's Huts) and in Queen Mary Land, and using radio in Antarctica for the first time
- 1912, established the main base at Cape Denison, Commonwealth Bay, from which his ill-fated Far Eastern sledging expedition left
- 1913, explored over 3000 kilometres of the Antarctic coastline, collecting information on its geology, biology, meteorology, magnetism and oceanography
