Mount Bryan - Mosaic depicting agricultural life and Sir Hubert Wilkins MC&Bar,MiD. Mid North South Australia
Sir George Hubert Wilkins (known as Hubert), Military Cross and Bar, MiD
Hubert Wilkins was born 31 October 1888 in an outback cottage on his parents’ property named Netfield, Mount Bryan East, South Australia. He was the youngest of 13 children, born to Henry and Louisa Wilkins.
He was war correspondent and photographer, polar explorer, naturalist, geographer, climatologist, ornithologist and aviator. As a child, Hubert experienced the devastation caused by drought and developed an interest in climatic phenomena.
If hardship moulded the character of Hubert Wilkins, so also did his passion for nature, music and a desire for knowledge. Enrolled in both the South Australian School of Mines and the Elder Conservatorium School of Music simultaneously, he studied electrical engineering, and singing, playing the organ, flute and cello at the Conservatorium.
It was in a number of part time jobs he learnt the art of blacksmithing, and gained a sound knowledge of the workings of both steam and internal combustion engines. On a trip to Sydney he became interested in photography. Returning to Adelaide he found employment with a travelling cinema and travelled in both South Australia and the Eastern States showing films.
When he was 20 years old (1908) he decided to leave Adelaide and see something of the world. At this time in his life a number of thoughts were forming in his mind, thoughts based upon his past experiences and that were to lead him to follow fixed courses of action. One of the most important of his ideas was to attempt to discover how and why the weather could so dramatically affect people’s lives, as it had done his own. Two forces now took over his life: the need to discover things concerning the world about him, and the need to travel to places that would provide him with the answers to the many questions forming in his mind.
His travels began by stowing away on a ship at Port Adelaide. The ship deposited him in Sydney and he soon found employment as a projectionist, then later as a cinematographer.
On reaching London he obtained work with the Gaumont Company as a cinematographic cameraman and with the Daily Chronicle as a reporter. It was then (1910) that he learnt to fly at Hendon. He did not sit for any of the flying exams, which would have made him a qualified pilot, through lack of money. But his interest in flying was to remain with him for the rest of his life. So too was his passion for photography. Photographs of the time (1911) show him performing photographic stunts. One popular photograph shows him astride the fuselage of a Deperdussin monoplane hand cranking his camera. Despite these promotional stunts Hubert Wilkins was perfecting the art of taking aerial motion pictures. In his autobiography he believed he was the first person to take a movie camera into the air and film the scenes around him.
As a war correspondent and photographer, in 1912 he covered the fighting between the Turks and Bulgarians. From 1913 to 1916 he was second-in-command on Vilhjalmur Stefansson's Canadian Arctic expedition: Wilkins became adept in the art of survival in polar regions, added to his scientific knowledge and conceived a plan to improve weather forecasting by establishing permanent stations at the poles.
Returning to Australia, on 1 May 1917 he was commissioned as second lieutenant in the Australian Imperial Force (Australian Flying Corps). By August he had been transferred to the general list and was at I Anzac Corps headquarters on the Western Front. Appointed official photographer in April 1918, he was tasked with providing 'an accurate and complete record of the fighting and other activities of the A.I.F.' as a counterpart to Captain J. F. Hurley's propaganda work. In June Wilkins was awarded the Military Cross 'for bringing in some wounded men'. With Hurley's departure, he was promoted captain on 11 July and took charge of No.3 (Photographic) Sub-section of the Australian War Records unit. His routine was to visit the front line for part of each day that troops were engaged in combat and periodically to accompany infantry assaults. During the battle of the Hindenburg line, on 29 September he organized a group of American soldiers who had lost their officers in an enemy attack and directed operations until support arrived. Awarded a Bar to his M.C., he was also mentioned in dispatches. He is the only Australian official photographer to have been decorated.
In January 1919, as photographer, Wilkins joined Charles Bean’s mission to reconstruct Australia's part in the Gallipoli Peninsula campaign. He entered the England to Australia air race that year, but his aircraft, a Blackburn Kangaroo, experienced engine failure and crash-landed in Crete; he arrived in Australia by sea in July 1920 and his A.I.F. appointment terminated on 7 September. Engaging in further polar exploration, in 1920-21 he made his first visit to the Antarctic, accompanying J. L. Cope on his unsuccessful voyage to Graham Land. Wilkins next took part in Sir Ernest Shackleton's Quest expedition of 1921-22 on which he made ornithological observations.
Sir Hubert’s adventures continued from his home base in America. On one occasion he gleaned information from the Japanese Consul-General about Japan's intention to destroy Pearl Harbour and invade Singapore. Sir Hubert passed the information to the Allies but was not believed.
He died suddenly at Massachusetts, on 30 November 1958 and was cremated: four months later his ashes were scattered from the ‘Skate’ at the North Pole. Lady Wilkins survived him and wrote affectionately of a husband whose only contact with her for extended periods had been through his letters.
Ref: Australian Dictionary of Biography Vol 12 (MUP) 1990
South Australian Aviation Museum
Flinders Ranges Research
Mount Bryan - Mosaic depicting agricultural life and Sir Hubert Wilkins MC&Bar,MiD. Mid North South Australia
Sir George Hubert Wilkins (known as Hubert), Military Cross and Bar, MiD
Hubert Wilkins was born 31 October 1888 in an outback cottage on his parents’ property named Netfield, Mount Bryan East, South Australia. He was the youngest of 13 children, born to Henry and Louisa Wilkins.
He was war correspondent and photographer, polar explorer, naturalist, geographer, climatologist, ornithologist and aviator. As a child, Hubert experienced the devastation caused by drought and developed an interest in climatic phenomena.
If hardship moulded the character of Hubert Wilkins, so also did his passion for nature, music and a desire for knowledge. Enrolled in both the South Australian School of Mines and the Elder Conservatorium School of Music simultaneously, he studied electrical engineering, and singing, playing the organ, flute and cello at the Conservatorium.
It was in a number of part time jobs he learnt the art of blacksmithing, and gained a sound knowledge of the workings of both steam and internal combustion engines. On a trip to Sydney he became interested in photography. Returning to Adelaide he found employment with a travelling cinema and travelled in both South Australia and the Eastern States showing films.
When he was 20 years old (1908) he decided to leave Adelaide and see something of the world. At this time in his life a number of thoughts were forming in his mind, thoughts based upon his past experiences and that were to lead him to follow fixed courses of action. One of the most important of his ideas was to attempt to discover how and why the weather could so dramatically affect people’s lives, as it had done his own. Two forces now took over his life: the need to discover things concerning the world about him, and the need to travel to places that would provide him with the answers to the many questions forming in his mind.
His travels began by stowing away on a ship at Port Adelaide. The ship deposited him in Sydney and he soon found employment as a projectionist, then later as a cinematographer.
On reaching London he obtained work with the Gaumont Company as a cinematographic cameraman and with the Daily Chronicle as a reporter. It was then (1910) that he learnt to fly at Hendon. He did not sit for any of the flying exams, which would have made him a qualified pilot, through lack of money. But his interest in flying was to remain with him for the rest of his life. So too was his passion for photography. Photographs of the time (1911) show him performing photographic stunts. One popular photograph shows him astride the fuselage of a Deperdussin monoplane hand cranking his camera. Despite these promotional stunts Hubert Wilkins was perfecting the art of taking aerial motion pictures. In his autobiography he believed he was the first person to take a movie camera into the air and film the scenes around him.
As a war correspondent and photographer, in 1912 he covered the fighting between the Turks and Bulgarians. From 1913 to 1916 he was second-in-command on Vilhjalmur Stefansson's Canadian Arctic expedition: Wilkins became adept in the art of survival in polar regions, added to his scientific knowledge and conceived a plan to improve weather forecasting by establishing permanent stations at the poles.
Returning to Australia, on 1 May 1917 he was commissioned as second lieutenant in the Australian Imperial Force (Australian Flying Corps). By August he had been transferred to the general list and was at I Anzac Corps headquarters on the Western Front. Appointed official photographer in April 1918, he was tasked with providing 'an accurate and complete record of the fighting and other activities of the A.I.F.' as a counterpart to Captain J. F. Hurley's propaganda work. In June Wilkins was awarded the Military Cross 'for bringing in some wounded men'. With Hurley's departure, he was promoted captain on 11 July and took charge of No.3 (Photographic) Sub-section of the Australian War Records unit. His routine was to visit the front line for part of each day that troops were engaged in combat and periodically to accompany infantry assaults. During the battle of the Hindenburg line, on 29 September he organized a group of American soldiers who had lost their officers in an enemy attack and directed operations until support arrived. Awarded a Bar to his M.C., he was also mentioned in dispatches. He is the only Australian official photographer to have been decorated.
In January 1919, as photographer, Wilkins joined Charles Bean’s mission to reconstruct Australia's part in the Gallipoli Peninsula campaign. He entered the England to Australia air race that year, but his aircraft, a Blackburn Kangaroo, experienced engine failure and crash-landed in Crete; he arrived in Australia by sea in July 1920 and his A.I.F. appointment terminated on 7 September. Engaging in further polar exploration, in 1920-21 he made his first visit to the Antarctic, accompanying J. L. Cope on his unsuccessful voyage to Graham Land. Wilkins next took part in Sir Ernest Shackleton's Quest expedition of 1921-22 on which he made ornithological observations.
Sir Hubert’s adventures continued from his home base in America. On one occasion he gleaned information from the Japanese Consul-General about Japan's intention to destroy Pearl Harbour and invade Singapore. Sir Hubert passed the information to the Allies but was not believed.
He died suddenly at Massachusetts, on 30 November 1958 and was cremated: four months later his ashes were scattered from the ‘Skate’ at the North Pole. Lady Wilkins survived him and wrote affectionately of a husband whose only contact with her for extended periods had been through his letters.
Ref: Australian Dictionary of Biography Vol 12 (MUP) 1990
South Australian Aviation Museum
Flinders Ranges Research