The Naval Career of Brian Nolan, 1936-2008

The Naval Career of Brian Nolan, 1936-2008

The Alexander Turnbull Library recently received papers of the late Brian Nolan relating to his naval career in the 1950s and 1960s. They include extensive records of Nolan’s involvement with the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1955-1958, the first expedition to successfully complete the first overland crossing of Antarctica, and only the second expedition to reach the South Pole.

The Expedition was lead by British explorer Dr Vivian Fuchs with support from the New Zealand Ross Sea team. Sir Edmund Hillary led the New Zealand team, which included research scientists involved with the International Geophysical Year. Hillary’s team set up camp at Scott Base in the McMurdo Sound, and laid supply depots from the Base to the South Pole to enable Fuchs’ team to complete the full Antarctic crossing, which began at the Shackleton Base near Vahsel Bay.

Brian Nolan served aboard the New Zealand naval vessel Endeavour, which transported the New Zealand team to the Antarctic in December 1956. The same ship also returned both teams of explorers back to New Zealand in March 1958. Nolan’s wife, Ann, kept two scrapbooks of newspaper cuttings, telegrams, photographs and ephemera during Nolan’s naval career. There is extensive coverage of the Trans-Antarctic Expedition within these volumes, together with photographs taken aboard the Endeavour and at Scott Base.

Researchers of both the Antarctic explorations and the Royal New Zealand Navy will find this collection both informative and enlightening. The photographs provide a unique documentary perspective on this episode of New Zealand history.

The Alexander Turnbull Library holds extensive papers relating to exploration in the Antarctic. Our earliest holdings are from the first explorers and whalers who sailed into the Antarctic Circle Region in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These include papers relating to Antarctic expedition leaders Capt Robert Falcon Scott and Earnest Henry Shackleton. Holdings include manuscripts from the British Antarctic Expeditions of 1901-1904, 1907-1909, and 1910-1913. Also held is material from the Australian Antarctic Expedition of 1911-1914, and the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914-1917.

- Seán McMahon, Assistant Curator, Manuscripts

Telegrams home to New Zealand, 1956, Brian Nolan papers (MS-Group-2014), Alexander Turnbull Library, Reference: fMS-Papers-11155-2-1

See these images on Flickr: Autograph sheet, Telegrams home

For further research, see:

• Climbing the pole: Edmund Hillary & the Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1955-1958, by John Thomson
• The crossing of Antarctica: the Commonwealth Tran-Antarctic Expedition 1955-1958, by Sir Vivian Fuchs and Sir Edmund Hillary
• Antarctica: the story of the New Zealand party of the Trans-Antarctic Expedition, by A.S. Helm and J.H. Miller
• Foothold on Antarctica: A Documentary of the 1957 Trans-Antarctic Expedition on Google Video

Permission of the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga O Aotearoa, must be obtained before any reuse of these images