Charles Francis Laseron

Laseron (right) with Percy Correll on Douglas Mawson's Antarctic Expedition

Charles Francis Laseron (born December 6, 1887 in Manitowoc , † June 27, 1959 in Sydney ) was a US-born Australian natural scientist and malacologist .

Charles Laseron's parents were Reverend David Laseron and his wife Frances, née Bradley. They came from England and the family lived temporarily in London from 1888 onwards before returning to Australia in 1891.

Charles attended St Andrew's Cathedral School in Sydney and Sydney Technical College, from which he graduated with a degree in geology. He then worked at the Technical Museum (now the Powerhouse Museum ) in Sydney in the geology department and published geological and paleontological works. From 1911 to 1914 he was a member of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition under (Sir) Douglas Mawson . During the First World War he took part in the Battle of Gallipoli and was wounded, which led to his discharge from the army in 1916. He later published memoirs about it.

In 1919 he married Mary Theodora Mason, a bank clerk with whom he had a son and a daughter. He was back at the Technical Museum after the First World War, but quit after he couldn't get away with the proposal for a separate department for arts and crafts. After 1929 he became a businessman and auctioneer of antiques, coins and postage stamps and became a recognized philatelist. When the Second World War broke out, he volunteered, but was released in 1944 because of bronchitis and heart problems.

Laseron died on June 27, 1959 at the Concord Repatriation General Hospital in Sydney.

He received the Polar Medal for his Antarctic research. The Laseron Islands in Antarctica are also named after him.

Work

• To Autobiography , Sydney, 1904
• From Australia to the Dardanelles , 1916
• South with Mawson , 1947
• The Face of Australia , 1953
• Ancient Australia , 1954

Web links

• Biography with photo, Australian Dictionary of Biography