Andrew Laidlaw Nelson was born in 1904 at Clydebank, Scotland. He joined the Merchant Navy and was a lieutenant in the Royal Naval Reserve when he joined the Discovery Committee, serving as navigator, first officer and finally captain of Discovery II between 1929 and 1935. In addition to these duties, he was responsible for organizing surveys of the South Sandwich Islands, the South Orkney Islands and part of the South Shetland Islands. He was co-author, with Stanley Wells Kemp, of a report on the South Sandwich Islands in the Discovery Reports . A skilled navigator and scientific observer, his sounding charts contributed much of what is known of the bottom topography of the Southern Ocean.
During the Second World War, he served in the Royal Navy, retiring with the rank of captain. After the war, he was employed as an oceanographer at Lamont Geological Observatory, a division of Columbia University. He died on 26 August 1958 in New Jersey.
Published work 'The South Sandwich Islands' by Stanley Wells Kemp and A.L. Nelson Discovery Reports 1931
From the guide to the Andrew Nelson collection, 1930-1933, (Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge)
