Sidney Jeffryes was sent mad by the isolation in Antarctica and never recovered

Sidney Jeffryes was a brilliant wireless operator on Douglas Mawson’s famed Antarctica expedition, but the journey wrecked his mind.

Frank Hurley's photograph of the interior of the Commonwealth Bay hut used during the 1911-1912 Mawson expedition.

Sidney Jeffryes should be remembered as the groundbreaking wireless operator who achieved a world-first by establishing two-way contact between Antarctica and Australia.

Instead, he’s remembered for going insane, accusing Douglas Mawson’s Antarctic expedition team of planning to murder him, and spending the rest of his years locked up in Ararat Lunatic Asylum.

Jeffryes is the subject of a new episode of the free In Black and White podcast on Australia’s forgotten characters:

Ron Roberts, a tour guide at J Ward, Ararat’s Old Gaol and Lunatic Asylum, says Jeffryes’ tragic life story could have turned out very differently.

“He was a man who was in some ways very brilliant, and if life had taken a different turn, he would have gone down in Australian history,” Ron says.

“But because he went insane, he disappeared off the map of the world.”

Jeffryes earned a coveted slot as the wireless operator on Mawson’s Australasian Antarctic Expedition in 1913, travelling on the Aurora to Cape Denison.

Dr Forbes McKay, Sir Edgeworth David and Sir Douglas Mawson at the South Pole in 1909.

“He had a brilliant brain, and whilst he was down there he discovered how he could send messages, morse code, straight back to Australia, without having to relay it through a couple of extra stations, which meant they had instant communication with Hobart,” Ron says.

“Before that, it could take two, three days to get a message back and forth.

“Nobody else had been able to do it.”

Two members of Mawson's 1912 exploration team battle a blizzard.

Mawson's team prepare for the expedition in 1912.

But Jeffryes was the only one who could transmit in morse code, so the expedition was thrown into turmoil in winter 1913, as the hardship of isolation took its toll, when Jeffryes began showing signs of paranoia.

“He argued with Mawson, and at one stage Mawson went off on one of his weekly expeditions into close to the centre,” Ron says.

“While he was away, Jeffryes decided that they were all going to get him.

“So he got on to his radio and typed it into Hobart, saying everybody at the expedition had gone mad except him, and he was scared they were going to try to kill him.”

Jeffryes was locked away until he could be sent back to Australia, while the expedition urgently trained another wireless operator.

“He got to the stage where he saved all his urine, and he drank it, because he thought that was a cure for madness,” Ron says.

Jeffryes was sent home to Australia, but promptly vanished.

After he was found wandering in the bush between Stawell and Ararat, stark naked, a court committed him to Ararat Lunatic Asylum, where he remained until he died 28 years later.

To learn more, listen to the interview in the In Black and White podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or web.

See In Black & White in the Herald Sun newspaper Monday to Friday for more stories and photos from Victoria’s past.