Part III: Antarctica and Academe - Scott Polar Research Institute

supported his plans and eventually the Treasury, and the governments of New
Zealand, Australia and South Africa were won over and came on board.
The story of this extremely successful expedition is well known and has been
described in the expedition book (28). His team included men from Britain, New
Zealand, Australia and South Africa, and Sir Edmund Hillary agreed to lead the New
Zealand support party in from the Ross Sea. The expedition used dog teams, tractors,
snow-cats and aircraft. There were three components: an advance party landed on
the Filchner Ice Shelf at the head of the Weddell Sea; a Ross Sea support team led by
Sir Edmund Hillary, laying depots from McMurdo Sound in the Ross Sea, to the Pole,
and the crossing team itself led by Fuchs, which overcame enormous difficulties and
hardships.
The scientific programme [on the crossing] was substantial, The most significant
results were from geophysics, geology, glaciology and meteorology. The work was
punishing and slow, for the main party did painstakingly tedious seismic reflection
shots every 30 miles (to determine ice depths) and gravity readings every 15 miles. A
wealth of other scientific data was collected on topographic survey, geology, tides,
meteorology, marine biology and human physiology [ref(43)(76)]. Topographical
surveys were made by the New Zealanders in Victoria Land, where a party from
‘Scott Base’, led by J H Miller made extensive summer surveys to north and south,
covering over 2000 km by dog-sledging. The scientific achievements were later
published in a substantial set of expedition reports, funded from the money raised
for the expedition.
On Bunny’s leave of absence to plan and execute the TAE Rear base and
Scientific Bureau were amalgamated to form a London Office, FIDS. And Sir
Raymond Priestley, geologist with Scott and Shackleton, became temporary Director
of FIDS from 1955 to 1958. The second half of the l950s and into the l960s was a peak
period in British Antarctic affairs: in the field the International Geophysical Year
(IGY) 1957-58, brought an unprecedented number of scientists to the Antarctic; the
Royal Society established a scientific station, Halley Bay, in 1956; and during 1955-
57[6] the FID Aerial Survey Expedition (FIDASE) under contract to the Department
of Colonial Surveys – at a cost of £250,000 (about £4 million at current prices) - was
operational from Deception Island. A new FIDS ship, the RRS John Biscoe was
launched in 1956; and in 1958 the TAE under Bunny Fuchs’ leadership accomplished
the first crossing of the continent (ref book). Two other developments occurred at this
time that had enormous implications for Antarctic Science. These were the formation
of the international Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) in l958
(under the aegis of the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU)), and the
signing and entry into force of the Antarctic Treaty in l961.
[By 1957 there were still only 54 scientists in FIDS, (mainly geologists,
surveyors, and meteorologists), distributed among eleven stations.]
After his resounding success Bunny Fuchs, now Sir Vivian, returned to the
Bureau at the end of 1958 and continued the rationalization of FIDS, begun by
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