Phillip Law

Published on Thursday 11 March 2010 19:52

Antarctic explorer who made 28 trips to the continent, his final one at the age of 91

Born: 21 April, 1912, in Tallangatta, Victoria, Australia.

Died: 28 February, 2010, in Melbourne, Australia, aged 97.

HOW does one gauge a successful career? Is it by the level of achievement? Is it by longevity? Is it by the acquisition of an outrageously cool nickname?

Phillip Law, the Australian explorer who has died at the age of 97, could claim all three and many more besides.

Though widely acknowledged to be one of the most important Antarctic explorers in the history of scientific exploration on the continent, Law was a modest man. Like many of the great explorers, he had a Midas touch when it came to understatement.

He described his pioneering trip to the Larsemann Hills – a perilous journey in which his ship could quite easily have been sunk many times over – as "a feat, in those days, of no little difficulty".

It was that same trip which he regarded as his finest moment; he was a man who knew very well what he had achieved but felt no need to cover himself in glory.

He was born in the small town of Tallangatta in north-east Victoria, 1912, Law was a talented academic and an even more talented sportsman. The second of six children to Arthur and Lily Law, he was educated at Hamilton High School.

There he excelled in the pool and became swimming champion, before deciding to follow his father into teaching.

Gaining the required grades he enrolled at Ballarat Teachers' College, before moving on to Melbourne Teacher College and eventually Melbourne University, where he became the lightweight boxing champion – an early sign of his adventurous nature and tenacity.

After graduation he was appointed science master at Clunes Higher Elementary School in 1933, before moving on to Elwood Central School and then Melbourne Boys School.

There he took a two-year sabbatical to complete an MSc in physics, graduating as Australia joined the Second World War. Law, ever the adventurer, was keen for action and had already enlisted in the RAAF.

However, his employers at the university physics department were pretty keen on keeping him at his work researching weapons technology.

Unperturbed, Law made arrangements to carry out scientific work on behalf of the army on the battlefields in New Guinea, a trip that lasted four months.

Following the war, Law worked as a university lecturer in Melbourne, specialising in cosmic rays, before taking his first steps into Antarctic history.

In 1947 the Australian government was intent on forwarding its territorial claim to the Antarctic continent and created the Anare (Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions).

The aims of Anare were to establish two research stations, one each at Heard Island and Macquarie Island, and to deploy a research vessel, HMAS Wyatt Earp.

In August of that year Law was seconded as senior scientific officer for Anare. He was charged with the co-ordination of scientific programs and was to accompany the research ship when cosmic ray observations were recorded at various latitudes.

As it turns out, the vessel was inadequate for the journeys on which it was intended to embark, its wooden hull proving too frail, and it failed to reach Antarctica, but the cosmic ray research was a success.

By 1949 Law was not only head of the Anare but also director of the newly created Antarctic division of the Commonwealth Department of External Affairs.

The following five years involved extensive scientific research and the establishment of an administrative structure, but Law was still firmly focused on Antarctica.

He sourced the perfect ship for the voyage, an ice-breaking Danish vessel named the Kista Dan. The ship was being built to service lead mines in Greenland during the summer months.

Law made enquiries to find out if he could charter the vessel during the winter months and, in January 1954, he and a crew of ten others made land.

From here Law used an Auster aircraft to locate the site for a permanent station.

This station was to become Australia's first permanent Antarctic Research Unit, and Law named it Mawson after Douglas Mawson, an explorer whom he greatly admired.

Later he would name one of the expedition ships The Nella Dan after his wife Nel. Nel was the first Australian woman to set foot on Antarctica, and she was also the designer of the Anare logo. She died in 1990.

In 1966 Law resigned his post of director of the Antarctic Division, feeling that the role required the energy and drive of a younger candidate. Retirement was not at the forefront of his thinking, however, as he took up an equally challenging role.

As executive vice-president of the Victoria Institute of Colleges, he was the co-ordinator of the numerous vocationally orientated education institutes. All of these have subsequently become either universities in their own right, or affiliated with existing institutions.

Law finally "retired" in 1977, although this is a loose term as he was still involved with Antarctic expeditions well in to his old age, making his last trip at the sprightly age of 91.

He remained an enthusiastic sportsman, and excelled not only at swimming and boxing, but also at tennis. He was still playing five sets three times per week until he was 93.

It will hardly be a surprise to learn that he was a more than competent mountaineer, skier and skin diver. If it involved excitement, adventure, even danger, Law would do it, and do it well.

His list of medals and achievements is almost ridiculously long. He was awarded the Founder's Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1960; appointed CBE in 1961 and an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1975. This was raised to Companion of the Order of Australia in 1995.

He was also awarded the Queen's Polar Medal and the medals of the Australian Geographic Society, the Royal Society of New South Wales, the Royal Society of Tasmania, the Royal Geographical Society of Australia and the President's medal of the Australian Scout Association.

During his life he was the head of many leading institutions including being chairman of the Australian National Committee for Antarctic Research, president of the Royal Society of Victoria (several times), the Victorian Division of the Institute of Physics, and the Australian New Zealand Scientific Exploration Society.

Law was one of the most experienced, most accomplished and one of the most successful Antarctic Explorers in history.

He chose sites for, led and took part in 28 separate trips to the continent, nonchalantly claiming to have encountered near-lethal situations on at least 25 of these – odds that would normally have put off even the most hardy of adventurers.

He was responsible for mapping some 5,000km of coastline and in the region of one million square miles of interior land. He was also aware of the significance of this, knowing that the age of the explorer was coming to an end.

Unless you are first you are not exploring; you are on holiday.

Law knew this, and he often said: "I'm one of the last people in the world who's had the joy of new exploration.''

Despite his modesty and ability to understate his achievements and the dangers he encountered, he had also earned his bragging rights, cheekily claiming to have explored ten times as much land as Scott, Shackleton, Mawson and every other explorer together.

Phillip Law, also known as "Mr Antarctica", died in Melbourne on 28 February 2010, aged 97. His wife Nel died in 1990 and they had no children.