(George) Colin Lawder Bertram was born on 27 November 1911. While reading zoology at St. John's College, Cambridge, he participated in the Cambridge Expedition to Bear Island in 1932, conducting a programme of ornithological research. After graduating, he served as a member of the Cambridge Expedition to East Greenland in 1933, in company with the French explorer, Jean-Baptiste Charcot.
Bertram studied coral reefs in the Red Sea before joining the British Graham Land Expedition, 1934-1937 (leader John Riddoch Rymill), as biologist, conducting studies of Weddell and Crabeater seals. He participated in the main southern journey, discovering and traversing King George VI Sound. After the expedition, he returned to Cambridge to complete his doctorate and in 1939, he published Arctic and Antarctic, The technique of polar travel .
On the outbreak of the Second World War, he developed cold weather clothing on behalf of the War Office, and between 1940 and 1944, acted as chief fisheries officer for Palestine. He later served as fisheries adviser to the Middle East Supply Centre and to the Sultan of Muscat. In 1945, he was elected a fellow and tutor of St. John's College, and between 1949 and 1956 was part-time director of the Scott Polar Research Institute. He continued his scientific research, including studies of fur seals and Sirenia, and was concerned with ecological issues and eugenics, publishing Adam's Brood, Hopes and fears of a biologist in 1959. Between 1965 and 1972, he served as senior tutor of St. John's College. He died on 11 January 2001 in Graffham, Sussex.
Published work Memories and musings of an octogenarian biologist by George Colin Lawder Bertram, Self Publishing Association Hanley Swan Worcs. (1992) SPRI Library Shelf 92[Bertram], Antarctica, Cambridge, conservation and population; a biologist's story by George Colin Lawder Bertram, G.C.L. Bertram Cambridge (1987) SPRI Library Shelf 92[Bertram], Arctic and Antarctic, the technique of polar travel by George Colin Lawder Bertram, Heffer & Sons, Cambridge (1939) SPRI Library Shelf 910.2(211), In search of mermaids, the manatees of Guiana by George Colin Lawder Bertram, Peter Davies, London (1963) SPRI Library Shelf 599.55
From the guide to the Colin Bertram collection, 1932-1952, (Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge)
