largest and most mountainous island of the Norwegian high arctic archipelago known as Svalbard. He saw the geological potential of Svalbard for both research and educational work with its superb rock exposures showing a more or less complete stratigraphic succession from late Precambrian to the Palaeogene. From 1948 he developed and directed the Cambridge Spitsbergen Expeditions (CSE) from the Cambridge University Department of Geology, later Department of Earth Sciences, Cambridge University. This became the Cambridge Svalbard Exploration research group and later developed into the Cambridge Arctic Shelf Programme, CASP. There were forty three summer seasons of expeditionary fieldwork, of which he led twenty nine. More than 300 undergraduates and about fifty graduate collaborators were involved over the years. Svalbard proved an excellent training ground for future geologists producing around thirty PhD theses and over three hundred scientific papers. Many senior figures in academia, industry and polar work gained early field experience on these expeditions. Harland's work in the Arctic is commemorated by Harland Huset, the UK's Arctic Research Station located in Ny-Ålesund. The ice field ′Harlandisen′ in Spitsbergen is also named in his honour. His wife Elisabeth accompanied him on 13 expeditions and both were awarded the polar medal. Survey field work and mapping Cambridge Spitsbergen Expeditions carried out a programme of systematic geological and stratigraphic investigations. Early fieldwork involved transport in small open boats, man hauled sledges and much pack carrying to the study area, using primitive equipment and often in harsh conditions. Expeditions from 1949 to 1960 spent much effort on a simultaneous geological and topographical survey using map triangulation to fix the position of mountain tops. He was awarded a Founder's Medal from the Royal Geographical Society in 1968 for his exploration and mapping work. A range of objects used by Harland in survey field work since the 1930s was donated to the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, Cambridge in 2003. Svalbard Geology From 1961 he extended the Svalbard project by negotiating financial support from oil companies: this enabled a programme of field investigations in wider areas, supported by better transport including a series of motor boats and occasional chartered helicopters. Local successions of rock units and fossils were described and correlations made in accord with the developing stratigraphic standards, providing the data for geotectonic interpretation and historical synthesis. Harland and colleagues’ research into Svalbard geology culminated in the comprehensive ′The Geology of Svalbard′ published