Abstract
MB. R. E. Priestley, fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and Secretary General of the Faculties of the University, has been appointed Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne. Mr. Priestley was educated at Tewkesbury Grammar School and entered the University of Bristol in 1905. In 1907 he joined Shackleton's Nimrod Expedition as geologist. On returning from the Antarctic in 1909 he spent a year as a research student at the Uni versity of Sydney, working up the results of the expedition with Prof. Edgworth David. The sudden illness of Scott's geologist led to Priestley joining Scott's last expedition one week before the boat left Sydney. From 1910 until 1913 he was scientific observer with the northern party, first at Cape Adair, then at Terra Nova Bay. During the latter period he spent a winter in a snow cave on half rations. On his return from the south in 1913, Priestley entered Christ's College, Cambridge, as a fellow commoner and research student with the view of working up the results of the expedition. On the outbreak of the War, Priestley was commissioned in the London Wireless Signal Section and served in France. At the end of the War he spent some fifteen months writing the official history of the signal service in the War. On returning to Cambridge he studied for the agricultural diploma and was appointed lecturer in soil science. In 1923 he was elected a fellow of Clare College.
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New Vice–Chancellor: University of Melbourne. Nature 134, 207–208 (1934). https://doi.org/10.1038/134207c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/134207c0