Frank Debenham (1884-1965)

Abstract

The Polar community has suffered a great loss in the death in November 1965 of Frank Debenham. Debenham was a powerful inspiration to many polar workers, being at the same time a disciplinarian professor of geography and a warm hearted individual who, around his hospitable fireside, could inspire young men to take up a career, or a voluntary immolation into polar exploration. He was definitely the founder of what must be considered the senior Polar Research body of the world, the Scott Polar Research Institute at Cambridge. Many of us have thought out fanciful or practical schemes when confined to tent or igloo in a blizzard. But the idea of a repository of polar information and a centre from which future expeditions could draw their nourishment came to Frank Debenham on the slopes of Mt. Erebus in 1912. At that time he was a member of Capt. Scott's last Antarctic expedition, which ended triumphantly but tragically for the leader and his four companions. Britain and the world were profoundly moved by the death of these brave men and the public subscription to take care of their widows and children exceeded the funds required by a wide margin. It was from this surplus that Debenham's scheme for a Polar Institute was achieved, supported as he was by (Sir) James Wordie and (Sir) Raymond Priestly, two other great Antarctic men. From its inception in 1920-26 until 1946, Debenham was the Director of the Scott Polar Research Institute, and from 1930 Professor of Geography at Cambridge University. Debenham, Griffith Taylor, and Priestly were all three geologists on Scott's last expedition. The first two, Australians by birth, were distinguished founders or chairmen of University Geography Departments; the latter went on to be Vice-Chancellor of two universities and President of the Royal Geographical Society. Scott and Shackleton both knew how to pick men, and Debenham likewise attracted and then stimulated the very best. In these material modern days when a graduate student assistant expects a fat salary, it is of interest to record that until 1930 neither the Director nor his secretary nor any of the other workers at the Scott Polar Research Institute received a cent of pay, and thereafter only the secretary, who, at times, assisted Debenham in scrubbing the floor. Ill health plagued Professor Debenham for a time, at and after his retirement. But somehow a new lease on life arrived with his postwar researches in Africa and his scholarly writings, if anything, increased now that he no longer had to devote his leisure to housecleaning in the Polar Institute. In skull cap and smoking jacket he became the friend and mentor of a new generation of British polar enthusiasts. Although never an associate of the Arctic Institute of North America, we on this continent have felt his inspiration and join the rest of the world and his large family in mourning the loss of a great and lovable polar enthusiast.