Carsten Borchgrevink - Early Life

Early Life

Carsten Borchgrevink was born in Oslo, the son of a Norwegian lawyer, nobleman Henrik Christian Borchgrevink, and an English mother Annie, née Ridley. The family lived in the Uranienborg neighbourhood, where Roald Amundsen, an occasional childhood playmate, also grew up. Borchgrevink was educated at Gjerstsen College, Oslo, and later (1885–88) at the Royal Forestry School at Tharandt, Saxony, in Germany.

According to historian Roland Huntford, Borchgrevink was of a restless nature, with a passion for adventure which took him, after his forestry training, to Australia. For four years he worked with government surveying teams in Queensland and New South Wales before settling in the small town of Bowenfels, where he became a teacher in languages and natural sciences at Cooerwull Academy. His initial interest in polar exploration developed from reading press reports about the work of local scientists on the first Australian Antarctic Exploration Committee. This organisation, founded in 1886, was investigating the establishment of permanent scientific research stations in the Antarctic regions. These plans were not realised; it was a revival of interest in commercial whaling in the early 1890s that gave Borchgrevink the opportunity, in 1894, to sign up for a Norwegian expedition to Antarctica.