This article refers to Cecil Madigan's schooling and some of his exploits on Douglas Mawson's Australasian Antarctic Expedition. It also gives an overview of Mawson's ordeal and the enforced stay in the Antarctic for an extra year of Mawson, Madigan and the four other men who had volunteered to search for Mawson.
The Children's Hour was produced by the South Australian Education Department from 1889 to 1963 and was circulated to primary school children. The article on Madigan emphasises that he was a public school boy, encouraging other public school students to emulate his achievements.
Madigan had his Rhodes Scholarship deferred so that he could join Mawson's Australasian Antarctic Expedition as meteorologist. The wind conditions at Cape Denison were very strong so the inspection of the meteorological recording equipment was arduous. Madigan was assisted in these duties by A J (Bob) Hodgeman.
In addition to this work, Madigan led a sledging expedition, the Eastern Journey, which examined and surveyed the coast of Adelie Land. Some 400 kilometres of coast was surveyed. Madigan Nunatak, east of the base and a prominent landmark, was named after him. (A nunatak is an exposed peak rising above the snow and ice field, and is a highly visible landmark.) The coastal survey involved crossing two glacier tongues, later named for Xavier Mertz and Belgrave Ninnis (Mawson's companions on the Far Eastern Journey). The Mertz Glacier had been approached from the land and it was sometime before Madigan and his men realised that they were travelling across a floating ice tongue. From its far edge they saw the distant glint of the Ninnis Glacier tongue, not realising it was such at the time. They would cross this as well during the course of their exploration. In mid-December they were off Horn Bluff, an eight kilometre long cliff face with a distinctive organ-pipe formation. Coal was also found here. The return journey was not without its dangers as the food supply ran desperately low; Madigan made a solo trek through often thigh deep snow to search for the depot they had laid on the outward journey. A mere two feet (60 centimetres) of it projected above the snow; six feet (approximately 1.8 metres) of snow had accumulated during their absence. When Madigan got back to his companions with a bag of supplies they were confined to their tent for three days in a blizzard. They finally reached base camp on 17 January 1913.
Mawson considered Madigan's team 'a highly successful enterprise, rich in results.' (Mawson, p. 238)
Madigan, along with Frank Bickerton, Bob Hodgeman, Archibald McLean and Bob Bage, elected to stay in Adelie Land into a second year to search for Mawson's missing party. In the event they were not needed as Mawson managed to reach the base unaided, with his tragic tale of the loss of Mertz and Ninnis. The ship Aurora, however, was unable to get back to collect them, and so a second enforced winter in the Antarctic followed anyway.
In life after Antarctica and service in the Royal Engineers during World War I Madigan completed his studies at Oxford University, and later became an expert in desert geology. He made an aerial reconnaissance of the Simpson Desert in 1929 and followed this up in 1939 with the first scientific examination of that desert.
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