Bernard Stonehouse


Dr Bernard Stonehouse was a British scientist who specialised in polar research and popular science.

Life and career

Stonehouse was born in Hull on 1 May 1926. He attended Hull Grammar School before joining the Royal Navy in 1944, and was seconded as a naval pilot to the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey from 1946 to 1950. After returning to Britain in 1950, Stonehouse studied zoology and geology at University College, London, and then earned his D.Phil. from Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology and Merton College, Oxford, which involved spending 18 months studying emperor penguins on South Georgia. He led the British Ornithologists' Union's centenary expedition to Ascension Island between 1957 and 1959. From 1960 to 1968, Stonehouse worked at the University of Canterbury and later appointments saw him working at the University of British Columbia, the University of Bradford, and, as editor of the Polar Record, at the Scott Polar Research Institute. He retired as editor in 1992 but continued as a senior associate, forming the institute's Polar Ecology and Management Group, and promoting Antarctic tourism.
Stonehouse married Sally Clacey in 1955; they had two daughters and a son. He died on 12 November 2014. He is commemorated in the names of Stonehouse Bay and Mount Stonehouse.