Correspondence between Mawson and Simmers: the missing meteorological report of Ritchie Simmers from the BANZARE voyages of 1929–1931 in Antarctic waters

The British, Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (BANZARE) operated during the 1929-1930 and 1930-1931 austral summers, primarily as a ship-borne expedition in the Southern Ocean. Involvement of meteorologist Ritchie Simmers from the New Zealand Meteorological Service was part of the New Zealand contribution to the expedition. He collected data assiduously, including two-hourly weather observations during the day and 34 balloon flights tracked by theodolite observations. Simmers worked up considerable data but did not produce anything in the BANZARE scientific report series, as expected by Professor Douglas Mawson, series editor and expedition leader. Based on correspondence in the Mawson Centre at the South Australian Museum between Mawson and Simmers about his pending report, we suggest reasons for the striking omission of meteorological information from the report series. Simmers had a busy, full-time career with the New Zealand Meteorological Service, and not until 1947 was he permitted to work on his report in office hours. He was distracted by other events, including studying at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (M.I.T.). We suggest Simmers' enthusiasm for the project waned after Mawson rebuffed potential collaboration with Professor Rossby at M.I.T. involving BANZARE meteorological data. Little of Simmers' data set has been located.