Book Review
“Letters and diaries: Expedition to the Great Barrier Reef 1928-1929” by Sidnie Manton
Book review by A/Prof. Sarah Hamylton
ACRS President “History’s not such a frolic for women as it is for men. Why should it be? They never get around the conference table. In 1919, for instance, they just arranged the flowers, then gracefully retired…. What is history? History is women following behind with the bucket. And I'm not asking you to espouse this point of view, but the occasional nod in its direction can do you no harm.”
- The History Boys, Alan Bennett
T
he 1928-29 Expedition to the Great Barrier Reef had a profound effect on modern coral reef science. A group of British and Australian scientists based themselves for just over 12 months at Low Isles on the northern Great Barrier Reef. Here, they undertook the most thorough field observations and experiments ever taken at a reef locality, significantly advancing our understanding of corals, particularly their nutrition, growth, reproduction, how they respond to elevated temperatures, and how they form distinctive, zoned patterns across reefs. This book compiles Sidnie Manton’s letters home and diary entries, written during the time she spent as a member of the Expedition, and posthumously transcribed almost a century later by her daughter and granddaughter.
intelligent things they’re at is astonishing, and a little overpowering at first when you plunge into the middle of it armed with abysmal ignorance. They work jolly hard too…”. One can imagine Manton rolling up her sleeves, looking for an opportunity to get stuck in as soon as her feet touched the sand. It didn’t take long for that opportunity to arise.
Working as a member of the shore party led by Thomas (Alan) Stephenson, Sidnie Manton carried out quantitative ecological surveys along three major traverses across the reef flat, continuing one down to a depth of approximately 5 m underwater with the help of a dive helmet. She examined the reef surface through a rectangular Twenty-six year old Manton from the wooden frame measuring 0.9 x 1.8 Department of Zoology at Cambridge m. This frame was subdivided into University joined the Expedition on Low smaller squares, inside each of Isles for four months as part of a trip that which she counted and measured saw her away from home for nine months corals colonies. For the first time, in total. She travelled alone, mostly by Manton’s measurements enabled the ocean liner and train. Manton spent five zonation patterns of corals to be weeks in Tasmania collecting the better understood, both relative to Anaspides mountain shrimp before her water levels and more broadly across visit to the reef, returning to England reef platforms. Working alongside through Bali, Java and Sumatra. This is a others, Manton helped to produce Clifford, E.; Clifford. J. (eds.), 2020. Sidnie Manton’s formidable trip for anybody to have taken several large scale, exceptionally Letters and Diaries: Expedition to the Great Barrier Reef 1928-1929. 301 pages (available in paperback alone, particularly a relatively young detailed maps of different reef and e-book). woman in the 1920s. It is no surprise habitats, featuring prominent therefore, that Manton is described by her landforms of the Low Isles complex, family as “a woman of great determination and academic including two shingle ridges on the windward side of the brilliance”. Both of these qualities shine through this reef; a small sand cay on the leeward side of the reef and an account of what is now widely viewed as a legendary extensive reef-top flat, part of which is occupied by historical coral reef science expedition.
mangroves. Manton was in no doubt as to the value of this work, noting that nobody had ever made such a handsome, As Manton arrived on Low Isles at the end of March 1929, detailed section of a reef edge before. The long cartographic she observed “The amount they’ve done and the bright and record at Low Isles has provided a baseline that scientists
46
REEF IN REVIEW
