geographer ornithologist Photographer pilot polar explorer Soldier
Hubert Wilkins was a native of Hallett, South Australia, the last of 13 children in a family of pioneer settlers and sheep farmers.
He was born at Mount Bryan, South Australia, 177 kilometres (110 mi) north of Adelaide by road.
The original homestead has been restored by generous donation.
He was educated at the state school and the Adelaide School of Mines and learned to fly in 1910.
He quickly became an inveterate and bold traveler.
In 1909 Wilkins arrived in England after an adventurous journey through the Mediterranean and Middle East as a stowaway.
In 1912 he reported on the brutal Balkan War and the next year accompanied Vilhjalmur Stefansson's expedition to the Arctic.
He accompanied the Turkish troops in the Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913 as a photographic correspondent and in 1913 joined Vilhjalmur Stefansson's arctic expedition as second in command.
Wilkins later transferred to the general list and in 1918 was appointed as an official war photographer.
He was second in command of the British Imperial Antarctic Expedition in 1920 and in 1921 sailed as naturalist on Sir Ernest Shackleton's last antarctic expedition.
Between 1926 and 1928 he made three flights to Point Barrow, Alaska, and flew with Lieutenant Carl Ben Eielson from there to Spitsbergen, 2, 100 miles (3, 400 km).
He led an arctic expedition in the submarine Nautilus in 1931 and managed the Ellsworth antarctic expeditions from 1933 to 1939.
Wilkins was knighted in 1928 for making the first flight over the north pole from North America to Europe.
In June 1918 Wilkins was awarded the Military Cross for his efforts to rescue wounded soldiers during the Third Battle of Ypres.
Wilkins was subsequently awarded a bar to his Military Cross in the 1919 Birthday Honours.
Wilkins was the first recipient of the Samuel Finley Breese Morse Medal, which was awarded to him by the American Geographical Society in 1928.
He was also awarded the Royal Geographic Society's Patron's Gold Medal the same year.
(Photograph Description: George Hubert Wilkins Published: ...)
(This is a new release of the original 1928 edition.)
(NY 1957 2nd C. and R. Anthony. A pioneering adventure in ...)
Quotations: "In short, the exdtepedition is for the purpose of gathering data in connection with a plan for comprehensive meteorology study, including the polar areas and with the hope that once polar meteorological stations are established it will be possible to forecast for several years in advance, the seasonal conditions, and to collect scientific data of academic and economic interest from an area hitherto unapproached by a scientific staff equipped with a complete scientific laboratory and facility for comfortably carrying out their investigation and provided with adequate means of sustenance and means of safe retreat. Millions of dollars are spent each year by various institutions in oceanographical and geophysical research. A submarine will provide means for similar investigations in an economic and safe manner, in areas as yet untouched by scientists. "
On 15 April 1928, only a year after Charles Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic, Wilkins and Eielson made a trans-Arctic crossing from Point Barrow, Alaska, to Spitsbergen, arriving about 20 hours later on 16 April, touching along the way at Grant Land on Ellesmere Island.
For this feat and his prior work, Wilkins was knighted, and during the ensuing celebration in New York, he met an Australian actress, Suzanne Bennett, whom he later married.
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