George Murray Levick (1876–1956) was a British Antarctic explorer, and founder of the British Schools Exploring Society.
He was born in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, the son of George Levick and Jeannie Sowerby. After a short medical career, he joined the Royal Navy in 1910 but was quickly given leave of absence to accompany Robert Scott on his ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition. Part of the Northern Party, Levick spent the austral summer of 1911–1912 at Cape Adare in the midst of an Adélie Penguin rookery; his observations of the courting, mating, and chick-rearing behaviours of these birds are recorded in his book Antarctic Penguins.[1] Prevented by pack ice from embarking on the Terra Nova in February 1912, Levick and the other five members of the party (Victor Campbell, Raymond Priestley, George Abbott, Harry Dickason, and Frank Browning) were forced to overwinter on Inexpressible Island in a cramped ice cave. Apsley Cherry-Garrard described the difficulties endured by the party in the winter of 1912:[2]
| “ | They ate blubber, cooked with blubber, had blubber lamps. Their clothes and gear were soaked with blubber, and the soot blackened them, their sleeping-bags, cookers, walls and roof, choked their throats and inflamed their eyes. Blubbery clothes are cold, and theirs were soon so torn as to afford little protection against the wind, and so stiff with blubber that they would stand up by themselves, in spite of frequent scrapings with knives and rubbings with penguin skins, and always there were underfoot the great granite boulders which made walking difficult even in daylight and calm weather. As Levick said, "the road to hell might be paved with good intentions, but it seemed probable that hell itself would be paved something after the style of Inexpressible Island." | ” |
On his return he served in the Grand Fleet and at Gallipoli in World War I, 1914–1918. After his retirement from the Royal Navy he pioneered the training of blind people in physiotherapy against much opposition. In 1932 he founded the British Schools Exploring Society, of which he remained President until his death in June 1956. The work of the society was to take young men on expeditions to remote and unknown parts of the world.
At the time of his death, Major D. Glyn Owen, Chairman of the British Schools Exploring Society wrote:[3]
| “ | A truly great Englishman has passed from our midst, but the memory of his nobleness of character and our pride in his achievements cannot pass from us. Having been on Scott's last Antarctic Expedition, Murray Levick was later to resolve that exploring facilities for youth should be created under as rigorous conditions as could be made available. With his usual untiring energy and purposefulness he turned this concept into reality when he founded the Public Schools Exploring Society in 1932, later to become the British Schools Exploring Society, drawing schoolboys of between 16 and 18½ years to partake in annual expeditions abroad into wild and trackless country.
Murray Levick led a very full life of service to the community in many spheres which likewise enriches his memory, though modestly we of the society like to feel that his heart was surrendered to our activities, and we shall indeed miss his presence as we move into our Jubilee Year next year. |
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