Cecil Madigan

Who was Cecil Madigan?

Cecil Thomas Madigan was an Australian explorer and geologist born in Renmark, South Australia.

After attending Prince Alfred College in Adelaide, and the University of Adelaide, he won a Rhodes scholarship in 1911 to study geology at Magdalen College, Oxford. In 1911 he was invited by Sir Douglas Mawson to go as meteorologist on the Australasian Antarctic Expedition. In December 1911 the party left Hobart on board the SY Aurora. In January 1912 they reached Commonwealth Bay in Adelie Land, Antarctica, where they set up a collection of buildings subsequently known as Mawson's Huts. From there he led several expeditions into uncharted regions of Adelie Land and King George V Land. These expeditions gathered vital information about the presence of coal in Antarctica. He was awarded the King's Polar Medal upon their return. Madigan later served with the Royal Engineers in France during the First World War. He saw action at the Battle of Loos where he was wounded, and the Battle of the Somme. Throughout the 1930s, Madigan participated in numerous aerial surveys of the "trackless areas" of Central Australia, during which time he named the Simpson Desert after the president of the South Australian branch of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia -- Alfred Allen Simpson. In 1939 he led the first major expedition across the Simpson Desert. Although he was not the first to cross the desert, he has become known as the last of the "classic" explorers of central Australia. For many years he worked as a lecturer in geology at the University of Adelaide.