Wilkins, Sir Hubert (1888-1958), was an Australian explorer, scientist, aviator, and photographer. He became famous for his air explorations in the Arctic and Antarctic.
Wilkins learned to live in the Arctic while on an expedition under explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson from 1913 to 1916. Wilkins led a natural history expedition into northwestern Australia for the British Museum between 1923 and 1925. In 1928, after two unsuccessful attempts, he and Carl Ben Eielson became the first to fly an airplane across the Arctic Ocean from Point Barrow, Alaska, to Spitsbergen in the Arctic Ocean, a distance of 2,200 miles (3,540 kilometers). King George V of the United Kingdom knighted Wilkins that year.
Later in 1928, Wilkins led an Antarctic expedition and made the first Antarctic airplane flights while surveying the Antarctic Peninsula. In 1931, he tried, but failed, to reach the North Pole in the submarine Nautilus. He managed explorer Lincoln Ellsworth’s Antarctic expeditions from 1933 to 1936, and served as a United States government adviser from 1942 to 1958.
George Hubert Wilkins was born on Oct. 31, 1888, in Mount Bryan East, in the state of South Australia. He died on Dec. 1, 1958.
