Leslie Whetter

Leslie Hatton Whetter was a New Zealand surgeon and Antarctic explorer, born in Dunedin on 10 December 1888 and died at Matakana, Auckland, on 3 December 1955. A graduate of the University of Otago, he joined the Australasian Antarctic Expedition led by Douglas Mawson in 1911. During 1912 he took part in two sledging parties, the first laying supplies and the second exploring the area west of the Main Base at Cape Denison. On the second journey his party of three man-hauled a sledge 158 miles from the base and found the first meteorite known from Antarctica. Mawson judged Whetter lazy, the two clashed several times, and Mawson wrote that he was not fit for a polar expedition.