Alister Clavering Hardy, 10 February 1896 - 22 May 1985

• Published in: Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society
• Main Author: Marshall, Norman Bertram
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: The Royal Society 1986
• Subjects: Southern Ocean
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbm.1986.0008; https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rsbm.1986.0008

When he disembarked at Falmouth, England, on 29 September 1927, Alister Hardy had been two years away on ‘A voyage of natural history to study whales, plankton and the waters of the Southern Ocean in the old Royal Research Ship Discovery ’. At the end of his book Great waters (61), much of which is based on his Discovery journals (the quotation above is from its subtitle), he wrote: ‘ I might perhaps have dwelt upon our feelings as we approached home after being two years away, but I was too excited, and perhaps too nervous! Sylvia, daughter of (now the late) Professor Walter Garstang, and I had almost got engaged just before I sailed; and then we finally decided by cable, or was it wireless, to announce the event half-way through the voyage. We had expected to sail into Falmouth Bay on the afternoon of 29th September. Mrs Kemp and Sylvia had come to meet us, and were watching from the cliffs; a change of wind, however, delayed us and robbed them of the sight of our sails appearing over the horizon— it was dark before we got in. I shall never forget the excitement of dropping anchor, going ashore with Kemp in the ship’s boat, and meeting my wife to be for the first time since we were actually engaged—meeting her on the steps of the quay on a dark and windy night. For me it was a fitting end to one voyage and the beginning of another’. The latter ‘voyage’ ended on 22 May 1985. Alister was not long survived by Sylvia, who died on 26 October 1985. For many years friends awaited their Christmas card with a drawing by Alister, usually of some part of Oxford. In 1984 the drawing was of Emden House, ‘where we now have a flat’, and their news was not good. The printed message began: ‘We are getting too old to draw a new card this year, so we are using one of two years ago. Sylvia is now 86 and Alister 88’. Their troubles included Sylvia’s attack of shingles and broken leg and Alister’s visits to hospital with an erratic heart. Time ‘must have a stop’ was not far away. Meantime there was life to be lived and their ...