Edgeworth David - Antarctic Exploration

Antarctic Exploration

In mid-1907 David was invited to join Shackleton's Nimrod Expedition to the Antarctic and in December won Australian Government funding for the expedition. The same month he left for New Zealand with Leo Cotton and Douglas Mawson, two of his former students. David was nearly 50 years of age and it was intended that he would stay only until April 1908, but on route to Antarctica on the Nimrod he altered his plans and decided to stay for the whole expedition.

From 5 to 11 March 1908, David led the first ascent of Mount Erebus, the only active volcano in Antarctica. David led the summit party consisting of Mawson, Dr Alistair Mackay and himself, and there was a supporting party of three which it was afterwards decided should also attempt to reach the summit. In this they were successful in spite of a blizzard which barred their progress for a day and night. One member of the party had his feet badly frostbitten, and had to be left in camp before the final dash, but David and four others reached the summit and the whole party returned to the base.

On 5 October 1908, David led Mawson and Mackay on an attempt to reach the Magnetic South Pole. For ten weeks the men followed the coast north supplementing their stores with a diet of seals and penguins. They then crossed the Drygalski Ice Tongue and turned inland. They still faced a 700 km return journey and established a depot to enable them to transfer their load to one overladen sled and to remove the need to relay. On 16 January 1909 they finally arrived at the South Magnetic Pole and took possession of the region for the British Crown.

Edgeworth David had been appointed leader of the expedition by Shackleton but by the end of January with all three of the party experiencing severe physical deterioration, David was increasingly unable to contribute. On 31 January with Mawson out of earshot, Mackay exerted his authority as the party's doctor and threatened to declare the Professor insane unless he gave written authority of leadership to Mawson. Mawson reluctantly took command but by 3 February he acknowledged in his diary that "the Prof was now certainly partly demented". That day the party reached the coast line with perfect timing as within 24 hours they were collected by the Nimrod for the return trip to Cape Royds. The trio had covered a distance of 1260 miles which stood as the longest unsupported sled journey until the mid-1980s.

Shackleton's expedition returned to New Zealand on 25 March 1909. When David returned to Sydney he was presented with the Mueller medal by the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science at a rapturous official welcome.

At Shackleton's request David then went on a lecture tour, and earned enough money to pay the expenses of publication of the two volumes on the geology of the expedition. He also wrote his "Narrative of the Magnetic Pole Journey", which appeared in the second volume of Shackleton's Heart of the Antarctic. In 1910 the honour of Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George was conferred on him, and visiting England in connexion with the scientific results of the Antarctic expedition, Oxford University gave him the honorary degree of Doctor of Science. In 1913 he was elected for the second time president of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science.