Hornsby
Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday January 27, 2011
In the frozen landscape of the Antarctic, one of Australia's most accomplished scientists made his name, writes Peter FitzSimons.At the bottom of the "Big Dipper", which lies at the southern end of the F3 expressway, about 160,000 cars a day, carrying close to a quarter of a million people, pass under the bridge marked Edgeworth David Avenue. A hundred years after he reached the height of his fame, Edgeworth David is one of those Sydney names that still resonates widely. But who was he? Born in Wales, he studied geology at Oxford University and, in 1891, was appointed professor of geology at the University of Sydney. There, he was positioned to mentor the 16-year-old Douglas Mawson and it was Edgeworth David who fired Mawson's interest in all matters geological and squired him through his first degree by the age of 19. As a 25-year-old, Mawson, by then a geology lecturer at Adelaide University, became fascinated by evidence that glaciers had once scoured the landscape in the Flinders Ranges of South Australia. So he wrote to his old professor, wondering about the possibilities of accompanying David on a trip that the prof was about to make with Ernest Shackleton to Antarctica to study glaciers. Done! In short order David and Mawson found themselves in Antarctica. The two of them, with a 30-year-old Scotsman by the name of Alistair Mackay, were not only the first to scale the volcanic Mount Erebus in the early months of 1908 but also the first to stand upon the magnetic South Pole in January 1909. It was not easy for the 50-year-old professor to keep up with the younger men but he did so and was reluctant to trouble them to help him ...On one celebrated occasion, the trio had made camp overlooking Terra Nova Bay and Mackay had gone off with his field glasses to search for a path down the other side, while Mawson stayed in the tent changing photographic plates under the darkness of his sleeping bag. David took the opportunity to go a little way off and sketch the surrounding landscape.Thirty minutes later, Mawson was fully engaged in his work when he heard a slightly odd thing. It was the voice of ol' "Tweedy", coming from somewhere behind him ..."Mawson? Mawson, I say, are you busy?" the professor asked in a curiously strained voice. "Well, yes, Professor, I am at the moment," came the young scientist's reply."Mawson, very sorry to trouble you," interrupted David ever so politely a few minutes on, "but I don't think I can hold on any longer; I've fallen into a crevasse ..." Mawson rushed out to see and it was true! The professor had fallen into a crevasse 10 metres from the tent and was just managing to cling to the edges and not be swallowed up by it. He really didn't want to be a bother but he felt he had to be rescued and Mawson obliged. Anyway, that's him. He lived near where Edgeworth David Avenue now lies, was celebrated in his lifetime as Australia's most accomplished geologist and you might think of him next time you're on the F3 on the northern approaches to Sydney. Do you have a historical anecdote about a place in Sydney? Write to Peter FitzSimons at pfitzsimons@smh.com.au.
© 2011 Sydney Morning Herald