Douglas Mawson OBE FRS (1882 - 1958)

Born 5 May 1882 in Shipley, West Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom

Husband of Francisca Adriana (Delprat) Mawson OBE — married 31 Mar 1914 in Holy Trinity Church of England, Balaclava, Victoria, Australia

Died 14 Oct 1958 at age 76 in Brighton, South Australia, Australia

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Biography

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Sir Douglas Mawson OBE FRS was an Australian geologist, Antarctic explorer, and academic. Along with Roald Amundsen, Robert Falcon Scott, and Ernest Shackleton, he was a key expedition leader during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. The Mawson Station in the Australian Antarctic Territory is named in his honour.

Formative years

Sir Douglas Mawson was born on 5th May 1882 at Shipley, Yorkshire, England, second son of Robert Ellis Mawson, a cloth merchant from a farming background, and his wife Margaret Ann, née Moore, from the Isle of Man. The family migrated to Rooty Hill, New South Wales, in Greater Sydney's far north west, in 1884. Douglas was educated at Rooty Hill and at Fort Street Model School in Sydney. At the University of Sydney in 1899-1901 he studied mining engineering and graduated B.E. in 1902 whereupon he was appointed a junior demonstrator in chemistry.

Explorer-Geologist

The following year he took six months leave to make a geological survey of the New Hebrides (Vanuatu), under the auspices of Captain E G Rason, the British deputy commissioner there. This was Mawson's introduction to scientific exploration, carried out in rugged country with dense jungle and among hostile inhabitants. His report, The Geology of the New Hebrides, was one of the first major works on the geology of Melanesia. . . . more . . adb.anu.edu

He returned to further studies in geology in 1904 (B.Sc., 1905), having already published a paper (1903) on the geology of Mittagong, New South Wales, with Thomas Griffith Taylor and one (1904) on radioactive minerals in Australia, with Thomas Laby, in addition to several on the New Hebrides.
Through the early influence of Professor Archibald Liversidge, Mawson became a pioneer in the chemical aspects of geology and geochemistry. But the dominant influence was that of Professor (Sir) Tannatt Edgeworth David, foremost among workers in the geological sciences in Australia. In 1905 Mawson was appointed lecturer in mineralogy and petrology in the University of Adelaide. He immediately became interested in the glacial geology of South Australia.

In November 1907, (Sir) Ernest Shackleton, leader of the British Antarctic Expedition (1907-09), visited Adelaide on his way south. Mawson approached him with a view to making the round trip to Antarctica on the Nimrod. His idea was to see an existing continental ice-cap and to become acquainted with glaciation and its geological consequences. This interested him because in his South Australian studies he was 'face-to-face with a great accumulation of glacial sediments of Precambrian age, the greatest thing of the kind recorded anywhere in the world'. After consulting with David, who had agreed to join the expedition, Shackleton telegraphed: 'You are appointed Physicist for the duration of the expedition'. Mawson accepted, and so began his long association with the Antarctic.

Mawson turned down an invitation to join Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova Expedition in 1910; Australian geologist Griffith Taylor went with Scott instead. Instead, Mawson chose to lead his own expedition, the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (1911-14), to King George V Land and Adelie Land, the sector of the Antarctic continent immediately south of Australia, which at the time was almost entirely unexplored. The objectives were to carry out geographical exploration and scientific studies, including a visit to the South Magnetic Pole. Mawson raised the necessary funds in a year, from British and Australian governments, and from commercial backers interested in mining and whaling. The expedition, using the ship SY Aurora commanded by Captain John King Davis, departed from Hobart on 2nd December 1911. His party, and those at the Western Base, had explored large areas of the Antarctic coast, describing its geology, biology and meteorology, and more closely defining the location of the South Magnetic Pole. The expedition was the subject of David Roberts' book Alone on the Ice: The Greatest Survival Story in the History of Exploration.

1914

Mawson married Francisca Adriana (Paquita) Delprat, daughter of Guillaume Daniel Delprat, on 31st March 1914 in the Holy Trinity Church of England, Balaclava, Victoria.^[1] Also in 1914, Mawson was knighted.

In 1915 he applied to serve in a scientific capacity in the First World War, and in May 1916 he was attached to the British Ministry of Munitions, holding the rank of Major. Mawson became embarkation officer for shipments of high explosives and poison gas from Britain to Russia. Travelling to England with him were his wife and their first daughter, Patricia, born in Victoria in 1915. Their second daughter, Jessica, was born in London in 1917. Later, working for the Russian Military Commission, he investigated and reported on production in Britain in order to increase output of high explosives in Russia itself. After the revolution he was transferred to the British staff of the Commission Internationale de Ravitaillement, concerned with the maintenance of supplies of high explosives, chemicals, poison gas and petroleum oil products. The family returned to Australia in 1919, settling in Brighton, South Australia.

Academic-Geologist

Returning to the University of Adelaide in 1919, he was promoted to the professorship of geology and mineralogy in 1921, and made a major contribution to Australian geology. He organised and led the joint British Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition in 1929–31, which resulted in the formation of the Australian Antarctic Territory in 1936. He also spent much of his time researching the geology of the northern Flinders Ranges in South Australia. Mawson's extensive field-work was carried out on foot, by horse-and-cart, camel, and with motor vehicles. He was usually accompanied by students, who learned not only about geology but also about camping and survival in the bush, an activity which Mawson always enjoyed.

Retirement

Upon his retirement from teaching in 1952 he was made an emeritus professor of the University of Adelaide. Mawson's interest in Antarctica continued after the Second World War, when he promoted the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions; he was a member of the Australian Antarctic Executive Planning Committee until his death. Mawson also owned and worked a small farm, which he named Harewood, at Meadows, south of Adelaide, and he was a founder and, for over thirty years, a director of South Australian Hardwoods Pty Ltd.

Sir Douglas Mawson passed away at his Brighton, South Australia, home on 14th October 1958 from a cerebral haemorrhage. He was 76 years old. He was buried in the historic St Jude's Church of England (now Anglican) churchyard, Brighton. He was survived by his wife and their two daughters, Patricia and Jessica.

Awards

Mawson deservedly received many honours and awards, including:

• Antarctic Medal, Royal Geographical Society, 11908
• Knight Bachelor, 1914
• Founder's Gold Medal, Royal Geographical Society,^[2] 1915
• David Livingstone Centenary Medal, American Geographical Society,^[3] 1916
• Bigsby Medal, Geological Society of London,^[4] 1919
• Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), 1920
• Fellow of the Royal Society^[5], 1923
• Clarke Medal, Royal Society of New South Wales,^[6] 1936
• Verco Medal, Royal Society of South Australia
• Ferdinand von Mueller Medal, Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science
• A foundation fellow of the Australian Academy of Science
• also, two Italian decorations, Polar medals, and gold medals of the geographical societies of Chicago, Paris and Berlin.

Legacy

• His image has appeared on several postage stamps of the Australian Antarctic Territory: 5 pence (1961), 5 pence (1961), 27 cents and 75 cents (1982), 10 cents (2011), 45 cents (1999).
• His image appeared from 1984 to 1996 on the Australian paper $100 note and in 2012 on a $1 coin issued within the Inspirational Australians series.
• Mawson Peak (Heard Island), Mount Mawson (Tasmania), Mawson Station (Antarctica), Dorsa Mawson (Mare Fecunditatis), the geology building on the main University of Adelaide campus, suburbs in Canberra and Adelaide, and the main street of Meadows, South Australia are named after him.
• The Mawson Institute for Antarctic Research was established within the University of Adelaide.
• Mawson (postcode 2607) is a suburb of Canberra, district of Woden Valley, Australian Capital Territory.

Sources

1. ↑ Victoria Marriage Index #518/1914
2. ↑ Gold Medal
3. ↑ David Livingstone Centenary Medal
4. ↑ Bigsby Medal
5. ↑ Fellow of the Royal Society
6. ↑ Clarke Medal

See also:

• Jacka, F J. Mawson, Sir Douglas (1882–1958), Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University,
  published first in hardcopy 1986, accessed online 7 Feb 2019.
• Mawson, Sir Douglas, 2 vol. (1915) The Home of the Blizzard, being the story of the Australasian Antarctic expedition, 1911–1914 Vol. I, London: Ballantyne Press.
• Wikipedia profile: Douglas Mawson - accessed 7 Feb 2019.
• Wikidata: Item Q434281, en:Wikipedia