The Barcroft Islands are a group of small islands and rocks about 5 miles (8 km) in extent, lying close south of Watkins Island

Watkins Island

Watkins Island is a low lying, ice-covered island long, lying SW of Lavoisier Island in the Biscoe Islands. The island was first mapped by the French Antarctic Expedition under Jean-Baptiste Charcot, 1903–05 and 1908–10, but remained unnamed until resighted by the BGLE under Rymill, 1934–37. He...

, Biscoe Islands

Biscoe Islands

Biscoe Islands is a series of islands, of which the principal ones are Renaud, Rabot, Lavoisier and Watkins, lying parallel to the W coast of Graham Land and extending some in a NE–SW direction...

. They were mapped from air photos by the Falkland Islands and Dependencies Aerial Survey Expedition (1956–57), and named by the UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee

UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee

The UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee is a United Kingdom government committee, part of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, responsible for recommending names of geographical locations within the British Antarctic Territory and the South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands...

 for Sir Joseph Barcroft

Joseph Barcroft

Sir Joseph Barcroft CBE, FRS was a British physiologist best known for his studies of the oxygenation of blood....

, a pioneer investigator of the physiological effects of high altitudes and cold.