Sir Tannatt William Edgeworth David, (28 January 1858 – 28 August 1934) was a Welsh Australian geologist, Antarctic explorer, and military veteran. He was knighted for his role in the First World War.
A household name in his lifetime, David's most significant achievements were discovering the major Hunter Valley coalfield in New South Wales, leading the first expedition to reach the south magnetic pole, and serving in the Tunnelling Corps during the war.
Tannatt William Edgeworth David was born on 28 January 1858, in St Fagans near Cardiff, Wales.
At the age of 12, David went to Magdalen College School, Oxford, in 1870. In 1876, he gained a classical scholarship to New College, Oxford. While there he was lectured by the famous John Ruskin and William Spooner. In 1878 he suffered a health breakdown and travelled to Canada and Australia to recuperate. Returning to Oxford, he attended lectures on geology by Sir Joseph Prestwich which stimulated his interest in the subject. After graduating as a Bachelor of Arts without honours in 1880, he spent the following two years in field study of the geology of Wales.
In 1882 he briefly studied at the Royal School of Mines, London, under John Wesley Judd.
In 1891, David was appointed professor of geology at the University of Sydney, a position he held until 1924.
From 1900 to 1907 he conducted field studies of glaciation in the Kosciusko plateau and Precambrian glaciation in South Australia.
Douglas Mawson was enrolled for Bachelor of Engineering degree in mining and metallurgy from 1899 until his graduation in 1902, and Edgeworth served not only as an influential mentor to Mawson, but as his referee for his appointment as a junior demonstrator in chemistry during this time. In 1904, Mawson and T. H. Laby were the first to identify radium-bearing ore in Australia, and David made the formal presentation of the paper to the Royal Society of New South Wales on 5 October 1904 on the men's behalf. In 1906 Mawson identified and first described the mineral davidite (named after David), which contains titanium and uranium, at Radium Hill, South Australia.
In mid-1907, David was invited to join Ernest Shackleton's Antarctic Nimrod Expedition, and, in December, won Australian government funding for the expedition.
On 5 October, David led Mawson and Mackay on an attempt to reach the Magnetic South Pole. For 10 weeks the men followed the coast north supplementing their stores with a diet of seals and penguins. They then crossed the Drygalski Ice Tongue and turned inland. They still faced a 700-kilometre (430 mi) return journey and established a depot to enable them to transfer their load to one overladen sled and to remove the need to relay. On 16 January 1909, they finally arrived at the south magnetic pole and took possession of the region for the British Crown.
David had been appointed leader by Shackleton, but by the end of January, with all three of the party experiencing severe physical deterioration, David was increasingly unable to contribute. On 31 January, Mackay exerted his authority as the party's doctor and threatened to declare the Professor insane unless he gave written authority of leadership to Mawson. Mawson took command, writing in his diary on 3 February: "the Prof was now certainly partly demented". That day the party reached the coast line with perfect timing; within 24 hours they were collected by the Nimrod for the return trip to Cape Royds. The trio had covered a distance of 1,260 miles (2,028 km), which stood as the longest unsupported sled journey until the mid-1980s.
In 1910, David became a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George, and visiting England in connection with the scientific results of the Antarctic expedition, Oxford University awarded him the honorary degree of Doctor of Science. From 1911 to 1912, he provided public and practical support for the Japanese Antarctic Expedition, which was wintering in Sydney. In 1913, David was elected president of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science for the second time and in 1926, was presented with the Royal Geographical Society's Patron's Medal.
First World War: Australian Mining Corps
When the First World War broke out in 1914, David was a strenuous supporter of the war effort, supporting the campaign for conscription. In August 1915, after reading reports about mining operations and tunnelling during the Gallipoli Campaign, along with Professor Ernest Skeats, a professor at the University of Melbourne, David wrote a proposal to Senator George Pearce, the Australian Defence Minister, suggesting that the government raise a military force to undertake mining and tunnelling. After the proposal was accepted, David used his advocacy and organisational abilities to set up the Australian Mining Corps and, on 25 October 1915, he was appointed as a major, at the age of 57.
The first contingent of the corps consisted of 1,300 officers and men that were initially organised into two battalions before being reorganised into three tunnelling companies, as well as an electrical and mechanical mining company. After departing Australia for the United Kingdom in February 1916, the corps arrived on the Western Front in May 1916. Given the title 'Geological Adviser to the Controllers of Mines in the First, Second and Third Armies', David became relatively independent and spent his time in geological investigations, using his expertise to advise on the construction of dugouts, trenches, and tunnels, the siting of wells for provision of pure drinking water from underground supplies, giving lectures, and producing maps. In September 1916 he fell to the bottom of a well he was examining, breaking two ribs and rupturing his urethra. He was invalided to London but returned to the Front in November, assuming the role of geological technical advisor to the British Expeditionary Force.
On 7 June 1917 his wartime contribution culminated in the mining of German positions in the Battle of Messines.
In January 1918, David was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and in November he was promoted to lieutenant colonel. The war having concluded, he was demobilised in 1919. He was also Mentioned in Despatches twice.
In 1896 the Davids bought 26 acres (10.5 hectares) at Woodford, in the Blue Mountains, with an existing weatherboard cottage, two-roomed with two skillion rooms at the back. To emphasise his Welsh origins, Edgeworth David named the Woodford cottage ‘Tyn-y-Coed’, the 'house in the trees' (often mistranslated as 'the shack in the bush': 'ty' is a proper house in Welsh, not a mere hut).