George Murray Levick

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 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. Prevented by pack ice from embarking on the Terra Nova in autumn 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:



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...
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