Figure 1. Grahame being interviewed in his home at 5 Allen Street for the four-minute video, ‘Last surviving member of the Heard Island expedition: Grahame Budd’ (23 October 2024), produced by The Australian.

By Max Solling, August 2025 (from Bulletin 6/2025)

An active Glebe Society member in its early years[1] and resident of 5 Allen Street since 1974 (Figure 1), Grahame Budd left us on 7 June 2025, aged 95 years, with his children by his side. Grahame was a gracious and warm human being who many will remember in recent years as an indefatigable Glebe pedestrian.

John and Sarah Budd, ancestors of Grahame from Petersfield, Hampshire, England, sailed as assisted immigrants on the clipper Fiery Star, arriving at Moreton Bay on 20 November 1864. In 1891, they headed south across the Queensland border with their nine children to Dungay, near Murwillumbah in the Tweed Valley, where they engaged in dairying and growing sugarcane.

One of John’s sons, Arthur Eames Budd (1870–1957), married Annie Knight in 1895, a union that produced ten offspring. Large properties not only required the labour of many family members to succeed in their farming enterprise, but the presence of kin offset, to some extent, the loneliness of the frontier, providing emotional support that helped withstand other privations. Arthur Budd expanded his activities to become the managing director of Budd’s Farm Supplies. Energetic and imaginative, he became a Murwillumbah alderman and its Mayor from 1922 to 1927. From 1927 to 1944, he was the MP (Legislative Assembly) for the electorate of Byron. 

The fourth son of Arthur, Altona James Budd, born in 1904, a local produce merchant, married Agnes McDonald in 1927. The young couple had four children, two boys and two girls, one of whom was Grahame, born at Murwillumbah on 5 January 1930.

After finishing primary school, Grahame received a scholarship to The Armidale School where he was educated from 1942 to 1947 and then graduated MBBS from the University of Sydney’s Medical School in 1953. He went on to gain an MD (Doctor of Medicine) from the University in 1966

‘Mr Heard Island’

Grahame Budd’s connection to Antarctica and Heard Island, in particular, was such that he acquired the nickname ‘Mr Heard Island’[2].  In 1954, Grahame embarked on a mission that would make him an outstanding Australian Antarctic figure.

At 24 years of age, he was named the Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition (ANARE) officer-in-charge and medical officer on Heard Island (Figure 2). Heard Island is an Australian external territory about 1,650 km north of Antarctica. Grahame spent 14 months in the role during 1954 and 1955.

Seeing Heard Island while on an Australian Geographic expedition in 2012, Budd recalls he found it ‘no less alluring’ than he had when he first saw it in 1954, nearly 60 years earlier: 

Then, I’d looked out at dawn and seen the red volcanic cones and the blue lights of the glaciers and the snow fields going up into the clouds, the great cliffs and the sooty albatross calling … It was absolute magic, a magic that was never to fade.  

Figure 2. This photo of Grahame dates from about the time he and his co-expeditioners successfully summitted Big Ben (in background) on Heard Island on 25 January 1965 (Source: Dr Grahame Budd AM, ANARE Club website).

First summiting of Big Ben

Attempts had been made by expeditioners to climb Heard Island’s Mawson’s Peak (aka Big Ben), a massive ice-covered active volcano, but these attempts had been defeated by the island’s notoriously fierce weather. Big Ben (2,695 metres) is the highest point on Australian territory, higher than Mt. Kosciusko at 2,228 metres.

It was a source of intense frustration to Grahame that this magnificent peak remained unclimbed. Budd, Warwick Deacon and geologist Jon Stephenson made their ill-fated attempt to summit Big Ben in 1963 (Figure 3), with its air of quiet menace and a habit of springing deadly surprises. In a continuing blizzard, they lost their tent, sleeping bags, ice axes and equipment. The climbers, whose hands were frostbitten, narrowly escaped with their lives.

Undeterred, another exhibition was mounted the following year. Bill Tilman captained the 19-metre schooner Patanela in a ten-week journey from Albany in Western Australia to Heard Island in 1964, with five members of the Southern Indian Ocean Expedition: its scientist Grahame Budd, ex-UK Green Beret commando and leader Warwick Deacock (1927–2017), novelist Philip Temple, Colin Putt, and John Crick.

Figure 3. Jon Stephenson, Grahame Budd and Warwick Deacon toasting their survival after attempting to climb the formidable Big Ben in 1963 (Photo: Australian Geographic).

On 25 January 1965 they made the historic first ascent of Big Ben[3]. The feat was commemorated by Australia Post with the special 60th anniversary envelope in January 2025, featuring the group’s summit celebrations (Figure 4).

Between 1954 and 2002, Grahame participated in an extraordinary twelve Antarctic expeditions as an ANARE medical doctor, expeditioner, station leader and explorer – eight of them to Heard Island. He contributed research to science for over 60 years as a biomedical researcher, specialising in human adaptation to extreme environments, as well as making learned contributions on a wide range of nesting seabirds, including the changing populations of King Penguins and Fur Seals, and the impact of glacial retreat. His deep knowledge, good humour and passion inspired others; fittingly, his funeral notice described him as an indomitable spirit who had climbed his last mountain.

Many features in the Antarctic region now bear Grahame’s name, including Budd Peak, Budd Pass, Budd Ridge, Budd Bay, and the East and West Budd Islands, a legacy written into the landscape he helped explore and protect. He was a professor and honorary research fellow at the University of Sydney. He was awarded the Polar Medal in 1969 and in 2004 was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for ‘service to medicine, particularly human physiology and acclimatisation in extreme climatic conditions, and to scientific research in the Antarctic.’

Figure 4. From Australia Post’s envelope, released in January this year, commemorating the 60th anniversary of the first ascent of Heard Island’s Big Ben in January 1965. In the photo, taken by Grahame Budd, are (from left) Warwick Deacock, John Crick, Colin Putt and Philip Temple.

In 2005, Graham was a recipient of the Australian Geographic Society’s ‘Lifetime of Adventure Award’[4] and in 2024 was awarded the ANARE Club’s Phillip Law Medal[5].

Grahame Budd married Josephine Marea Bastian at Paddington, London, in July 1955. Jo, daughter of a Danish goldminer and a school teacher of Irish descent, spent her early years near the Mudgee goldfields. She was a graduate of Sydney and London Universities and travelled widely as a teacher, author and editor. She wrote a scholarly work on explorers Bass and Flinders, ‘A passion for exploring new countries’: Matthew Flinders & George Bass (2016). There were three children of the marriage – Silver, Laura and Martin. Jo, born on 24 December 1931, died on 2 July 2022.

Footnotes

[1]Type “Grahame Budd” in the search box on the Glebe Society website for more information.

[2] ‘Heard Island: How an ill-fated Antarctic voyage 70 years ago sparked Australia’s research mission’, ABC News [website], 15 December 2017.

[3]  Tim Bowden wrote a good article about this in the ANARE Clubs journal, Aurora: ‘Heard Island – the climbing of Big Ben’, Aurora, March 2011, vol. 30 no. 3, pp.6-15.

[4] ‘The Lifetime of Adventure Award is the Australian Geographic Society’s ‘highest honour and recognises those special Australians who have not only lived an adventurous life, but have also put something back into Australia and inspired other Australians.

[5] ‘The ANARE Club was formed in 1951 so members of the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions (ANARE) could celebrate their shared experiences and promote Australian Antarctic endeavour.’ Their Phillip Law medal is awarded ‘an individual who has made an outstanding contribution to Antarctic Affairs and the Antarctic community. This may include but is not restricted to contribution in the areas of science, technology, leadership, administration, environmental management, the promotion of tourism, or the raising of public awareness.’