It was discovered in November 1912 by the Western Base party of the Australasian Antarctic Expedition under Sir Douglas Mawson.

Mawson named the glacier for Lord Denman, Governor-General of Australia in 1911, a patron of the expedition.

[1] The canyon under Denman Glacier has been found by the BedMachine Antarctica project (under the leadership of the University of California, Irvine)[2] to be the deepest natural location on land (or at least not under liquid water) worldwide, with the bedrock being 3,500 m (11,500 ft) below sea level.

[3][4] Calving of Denman Glacier into the Mawson Sea gives rise to the periodically appearing Pobeda Ice Island.

[5] However, as there are many factors which will determine the rate of retreat as it continues, such as the narrowness of the channel along which it is occurring and the movement of warm water from the deep ocean, it is difficult to be certain about the fate of the glacier without the collection of more data.