Fellow, 1923-34, Honorary Fellow 1956-74. Antarctic explorer (with Shackleton and Scott). First Secretary General of the Faculties (Cambridge).
Born in Tewkesbury, the son of Joseph Edward Priestley, headmaster of Tewkesbury grammar school.
Educated at his father's school and taught there for a year before reading geology at University College, Bristol (1905–07).
He had completed his second year of studies when he enlisted as a geologist for Shackleton's Nimrod Expedition (1907–09) to Antarctica. He was part of the advance team that laid the food and fuel depots for Shackleton's nearly successful attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole in 1909. He returned to the Antarctic as a member of Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition (1910–1913), after being recruited by Scott when the Terra Nova arrived in Sydney.
Served in the British Army during World War I and was awarded the Military Cross in March 1919.
His research and thesis on glaciers in the Antarctic earned him a BA (Research) at Cambridge in 1920.
In 1920 he co-founded, with fellow Terra Nova expedition member Frank Debenham, the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge
In 1922 he was elected a Fellow of Clare College.
In 1924 he joined the university's administrative staff, becoming concurrently assistant registrar, secretary to the board of research studies and secretary-general of the faculties.
From the 1930s until his retirement, he held a series of academic and government administrative posts in Australia and England.
1935-1938 - Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne
1938-1952 - Vice-Chancellor of the University of Birmingham
1947 - Knighted for Services to Education
During this period he developed an acquaintance with the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, providing him with rooms for discussions and lectures.
After retirement in 1952, he served as Chairman of the Royal Commission on the Civil Service (1953-1955), as deputy Director of the former Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (later called the British Antarctic Survey) (1955-1958), and as president of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (1956).
He revisited Antarctica in 1956 and 1959 and in the latter year was awarded the Patron's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society, for whom he was president from 1961 to 1963.
