MEN OF MARK

Hokitika Guardian, 13 August 1930, Page 7

MEN OF MARK

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES. NORWEGIAN EXPLORER, D. Otto Sverdrup is one of a number of isciemsts who have agreed to accompany Sir lluoert Wilkins in bis attempt to pass under the ice of the Arctic Ocean in a submarine. Dr. Sverdrup was born at Haardstad, in Nordland ,in October 1854 and became a ship’s officer. In 1888-9 he took part in Nansen’s Greenland expedition being in charge of the vessel which conveyed the party. On bis return lie took command of a submarine, but in the following year went back to Arctic exploration. From 1891 to 1893 he superintended the construction oi the ship Fram, in which Nansen made his first attempt on the North Pole. On this expedition, which lasted from 1893 to 1896, Sverdrup was second in command Next year he was captain of the tourist steamer Lofoten on its trip to Spitzbergen. From 1898 to 1902 he led the ,second Fram expedition which proceeded northwards along the wesn cosat of Greenland to the Kane Basin at the end of Smith Sound. After wintering on the coast of Ellesmere Land the party explored the region of Haves Sound rmd later went westwards through dopes Sound between Ellesmere Land and North Devon, spending the second winter on the northern side of the squpd, During the two following winters thp explorers’ quarters were m Lat, 78,48. N, Thence they made journeys with dog sledges exploring the Par* ry Islands and the archipelago which was given the name of Sverdrup, King Oskar Land, Grant Land and Axel Heiberg Land. On June 15, 1902, the Fram got clear of the ice, and oil September 19 she reached the borne port of Stavanger. Later Sverdrup by way of contrast spent several yeans as a planter on the island of Cayo Moa, in the West Indies. He then returned to Norway. His exploration are described in his book, “New Land,” published in 1903.

AN EMINENT NEW ZEALANDER. Sir Harold Delf Gillies, the eminent British plastic surgeon, was born at Dunedin, New Zealand, in June, 1882, and educated at Wanganui College, New Zealand, and Cambridge Universit. Tall, slim and lithe, he was always prominent in outdoor sports, being captain of his school cricket team and playing golf for Cambridge in 1903, 1904, and 1905, and also rowing for the university in 1904. Qualifying as a surgeon at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London, he specialised in a comparatively new branch of surgery—-the reshaping and remarking of mangled human features, Meanwhile he was chief assitant to the throat depart-

ment of that hospital. It was the world war which gave him the opportunity of demonstrating his wonderful skill in his own special line with results which marked liim as the finest plastic surgeon in the world. He took in hand some of the most appallingly tragic cases of facial disfigurement and by the patient application of his methods of grafting skin from other parts of the body extending over many months enabled many men whose future appeared to be of the blackest to move about again as persons of ordinary appearance. A . fellow-surgeon once said of him: “I have seen whole ■faces grow from nothing under his amazing skill and patience.” He was also able to obviate the amputation of limbs from which the skin had been torn after grafting attempts by others had failed and gangrene was threatened. After the war he became plastic surgeon at Queen’s Hospital for Facial Injuries. Sidcup, Kent, and was known as the “Sidcup Wizard!” In 1920 he was awarded the C.B.E. His services continued to lie in great demand and his reputation becoming world-wide, be was often invited abroad to demonstrate his methods to foreign surgeons. He was knighted at the last Birthday honours.

Keeping up his interest in golf after leaving the university he played for England against Scotland in 1908, 1925 and 1926 and won the St.' George’s Grand Challenge Cup in 1913. He fihowed in golf the samp originality as in surgery—in his deep-faced wooden club and his high tee devjces.

Mr Laurence Binyon, poet and art expert, is probably beat known for his beautiful poem so often quoted in connection with memorials for the heroio dead of the Great War. Once again lias it been used when four memorials were unveiled in France on August 4, the sixteenth anniversary of Britain’s entry into the war. Mr Laurence Binyon was born at Lancaster in 1867 and educated at St. Paul’s School, London, and Trinity College, Oxford, where be won the Newdigate Prize in 1890 with bis poem “Persephone.” In 1893 be entered the department of printed books. at the British Museum, and two years later was transferred to the department of prints and drawings for which lie prepared the catalogue of English drawings issued in 1898. Later he,-became Deputy-Keeper in charge of ■ Oriental prints. His work as a critic includes monographs on the seventeeth century Dutch etchers, John Crome, John Bell Cotman, and Court painters of the Great Mogul. Ho also contributed to art periodicals. In 1906 he began to publish a series of reproductions of William Blake’s work with a critical introduction. He also produced a book on Botticelli (1913), another on the art of Asia (1915), a catalogue of Japanese woodcuts in the Britsih Museum (1917) and a work on Japanese colour prints

(with J. Sexton). He is at his best in epic poetry, but his other poems, though somewhat unequal, contain many fine passages.