Noted Polar Explorer Sir Phillip Law visits Glacier Society

Renowned Australian Polar explorer Sir Phillip Law, who this year celebrated his 91st birthday, was a recent visitor to the Stratford-based international Glacier Society and was warmly welcomed by Society chairman Ben Koether.

A member of the Glacier Society's Board of Directors since last year, Law is best known for his Antarctic explorations for more than 20 years.

Law was head of the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions and led 23 voyages to Antarctica and the sub-Arctic regions. In those expeditions, Law and his colleagues mapped more than 3,000 miles of coastline and 800,000 square miles of territory.

Born in Australia in 1912, Law started his professional career as a secondary school teacher, but vigorous forms of mountaineering, bush walking and skiing as a youth soon prompted him to pursue a life-long interest in exploring Antarctica. A physicist with degrees from Melbourne University, he was named the chief scientist of a new expedition to the region in 1947 and held the post until 1966.

Throughout his career, Law established several research stations in Australian Antarctic Territory. Those stations disseminated atmospheric, scientific, meteorological, mapping, radio transmission, biological, physiological and geophysical information to various scientific publications around the world.

In 1966, Law resigned from the Department of External Affairs and his involvement with the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions. He became executive vice president of the newly established Victoria Institute of Colleges to coordinate activities of 16 tertiary institutes of technology. Among his many achievements in that role was the establishment of two new colleges, the Victorian College of the Arts and the Lincoln Institute of Health Sciences.

Law later served as president of the Royal Society of Victoria, created the Victorian Institute of Marine Sciences and was foundation president of the Australia/New Zealand Scientific Exploration Society.

In 1998, at the age of 86, Law returned to the Antarctic to an area which he and his team were the first to explore 40 years earlier.

The Glacier Society is proud and honored to have the support and encouragement of this distinguished Polar explorer, Sir Phillip Law.