 Sir Hubert Wilkins. One of the 20th Century's greatest adventurers - but who was he? |
While his Australian contemporaries, Sir Douglas Mawson and Frank Hurley enjoy the modern notoriety of their achievements during the “heroic age” of polar exploration, the equally breath-taking exploits of the adventurous boy from Adelaide, Sir Hubert Wilkins, are often overlooked.
Born in 1888 in South Australia’s scenic Clare Valley, Hubert Wilkins was the youngest of the ‘golden era’ explorers. (Hurley 1885, Mawson 1882). Driven by the desire for adventure and an escape from the harsh rural life on Australian Victorian-era farms during the historic drought of 1895-1902, Hubert also believed he could improve the lot of farmers with better long-term weather forecasting and ecological management.
His family, stricken by the drought, moved to Adelaide in 1903, but Hubert, fascinated by the world as a whole, was in Sydney by 1909 working as a newsreel cinematographer. This took him to England and later the Balkan War in 1912, where he is credited with creating the first ever movie footage of actual battle scenes.
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