Phillip Law

Phillip Garth Law AC, CBE (born April 21, 1912 in Tallangatta , Victoria , Australia , † February 28, 2010 in Melbourne ) was an Australian polar explorer in Antarctica .

biography

After attending the Hamilton High School , he was a teacher of physics and boxing lessons at secondary schools as the Melbourne active high school. He also completed a degree at the University of Melbourne , which he completed in 1941 with a Master of Science . He then worked as a lecturer in physics at the University of Melbourne between 1943 and 1948 .

After the first Australasian Antarctic Expedition of Sir Douglas Mawson in 1911 to 1914 and the claim is raised in Australia to the Australian Antarctic Territory by the Australian Antarctic Territory Acceptance Act of 1933, Philip Law began in 1947 with its Polar Research Antarctica. With this first expedition after the Second World War , Australian Antarctic research began again as part of the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions (ANARE).

As director of the Australian Antarctic Division (AAD) founded in 1948, he led the 1954 expedition that led to the establishment of the first Australian research stations in Antarctica , which was named after Sir Douglas Mawson Mawson Station . Another expedition in 1957 saw the founding of Davis Station , the southernmost Australian research station in Antarctica. In 1959 he led the negotiations for the transfer of the previous US Wilkes station into Australian ownership and from which the Casey station in the easternmost part of Antarctica emerged in 1964 . As part of this expedition, the Anare Mountains were also explored and named in 1964 .

In 1966 he resigned from his position as director of the AAD, but remained loyal to polar research in the Antarctic and was chairman of the Australian National Committee on Antarctic Research between 1966 and 1980; he was in 1967/68 also President of the Royal Society of Victoria . Up to the age of 91 in 2003 he undertook a total of 28 expeditions to the Antarctic and, as the founder of the three Australian research stations in the Antarctic, laid the foundations for Australia's modern programs on this continent . During his expeditions he was also instrumental in the cartography of more than 5,000 kilometers of coast of the Antarctic.

His wife Nel Law, who died in 1990, was the first Australian woman to visit Antarctica.

For his services to Australian Antarctic research, he became Companion of the Order of Australia in 1995 . He was also Commander of the Order of the British Empire . In Antarctica he is the namesake for the Law Dome , the Beach Law Landing , the Law Plateau , the Law Promontory and indirectly for the Law Islands .

Web links

• THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: "Mr Antarctica dies in Melbourne" (March 1, 2010)