Obituary Sir Holmes Miller

Press, 10 February 1986, Page 4

Obituary Sir Holmes Miller

PA Wellington Sir Holmes Miller, who was Sir Edmund Hillary’s deputy on the historic 1958 cross-Antarctic expedition, died in Los Angeles on Friday. He was 65. Sir Holmes was a surveyor with a consultancy engineering and surveying firm in Wellington.

The funeral will be held in Wellington later this week.

Sir Holmes was born in Waimate and was dux of Waimate High School. After gaining a bachelor of arts degree at Victoria University of Wellington, he worked for the Lands and Survey Department for 15 years. During

that time, in 1949, Sir Holmes explored and sur-

veyed areas of Fiordland, which was then largely unmapped.

Sir Holmes was in charge of the dog sled teams on the 1957-58 Commonwealth Trans-An-tarctic expedition.

He then led several expeditions, mainly geological, into the area. He was leader on the 1963-64 Northern Victoria Land expedition, the last of the big expeditions where dog teams were used. During the 1957-58 campaign he mapped vast areas of mountainous country using dog sleds to travel 3700 kilometres.

He made one round trip of 2740 km, the longest

dog sled journey recorded in Antarctica. Sir Holmes was elected chairman of the Ross Dependency Research Committee and then directed research aspects of the Antarctic by advising the Government on programmes to be implemented in the area. He retired from that position about 1980, after which he was knighted for his services to the Antarctic.

Sir Holmes was a member of the Outward Bound Trust, and was chairman of the Australian and New Zealand Schools Exploring Society. He is survived by his wife, a son, and a daughter.