Born, 1833; commissioned into the Royal Engineers, Gordon was wounded in the Crimea; he demarcated the Russian/Turkish frontiers and served in China from 1860-1865 as Commander of an imperial army; Governor General of the Sudan for the Khedive of Egypt, 1877-1880; sent back to the Sudan in 1884, he was killed when Khartoum fell to the Mahdi's forces, 1885.
Born in 1874; House Surgeon and House Physician at Charing Cross Hospital, London, 1897-1898; entered Indian Medical Service, 1899; Medical Officer 2nd Queen's Own Rajput Light Infantry, 1899-1907; served in China, 1900-1902; Capt, 1902; served in Somaliland Field Force, 1903-1904; Staff Surgeon, Bangalore, 1908-1912; Maj, 1910; served in Balkan War, 1912-1913; Deputy Assistant Director of Medical Services, 1 Indian Cavalry Div, 1914-1916; Medical Officer, 11 King Edward's Own Lancers, 1916-1917; Lt Col, 1918; Assistant Director of Medical Services, Wazaristan Field Force, 1919-1920; Assistant Director of Medical Services, Wana Column, 1920-1921; Assistant Director of Medical Services, Razmak Field Force, 1922-1923; Director of Medical Organisation for War, Army HQ, 1924-1925; Col, 1925; Maj-Gen, 1928; Deputy Director of Medical Services, Eastern Command, 1928-1932; Honorary Surgeon to the King, 1928-1932; died in 1958.
Born Dublin, 1844; educated Trinity College Dublin and Royal Military Academy Woolwich; Royal Engineers, 1866; served in Sudan under General Charles Gordon, 1874-1875; War Office, 1875-1878; India Office, 1880-1882; led advance on Cairo after Battle of Tell al-Kebir, 1882; served in Egyptian Army, 1882-1886; assistant Inspector General of Fortifications, 1891; retired 1902; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, 1875-1916; knighted, 1905; died, London, 1916.
Born, 1813; studied medicine at Edinburgh, 1829; licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, 1833; surgeon of the Hudson's Bay Company's ship Prince of Wales, Jun 1833; surgeon at Moose Factory, the company post on James Bay, 1834-1844; lead an expedition to complete the survey of the northern coastline of North America, 1844-1847; chief trader, 1847; joined Sir John Richardson to search for Sir John Franklin, 1848-1849; chief factor, 1850; resumed the search for Franklin at the Admiralty's request, 1851; founder's gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), 1852; Fellow of the RGS, 1853-1893; led expedition to complete the survey of the north coast of America along the west coast of the Boothia peninsula, 1853-1854 - on this expedition he was the first to hear news of Franklin's fate; retired, 1856; served on the Council of the RGS on four occasions; died, 1893.
Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.
Born Aberdeen 1843; educated Dollar Academy and Marischal College Aberdeen; left university prematurely to take up watchmaking apprenticeship aged 17; took up astronomy 1863; visted Pulkovo Observatory, St Petersburg and Germany, 1873; observed Transit of Venus in Mauritius, 1874-1976; visited Ascension to observe Mars, 1876; Her Majesty's Astronomer at Cape of Good Hope, 1879-1907; pioneered photography in astronomy especially from 1882 resulting in the publication of the magnitudes and positions of more than 455,000 stars; organised geodetic survey of South Africa, largely completed by 1897; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1883; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, 1890-1914; died 1914.
Educated Somerville College, Oxford and Swanley Horticultural College; travelled to Egypt, 1892; went to India including Kashmir; Women's War Service, 1914-1918; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, 1919-1950; visited the Canaries and West Africa, c 1938; also travelled in Europe, North and South America, Australia and New Zealand, South East Asia and the Middle East; died, 1950.
Publications: Some Wild Flowers of Kashmir (1903)
Some Letters and Records of the Noel Family (1910)
Ethel Gertrude Woods was born 1865; educated, Newham College, Cambridge, 1891; research studentship in Munich; science teacher, 1898-1910; worked in the Censorship Department during World War One; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, 1927-1939; died 1939.
John Balleny was the English captain of a whaling schooner, the ELIZA SCOTT, who led an commercial voyage of discovery, hoping to find new lands and sealing grounds for the English whaling firm Enderby Brothers to the Antarctic in 1838-1839. Balleny, sailing in company with Thomas Freeman and the SABRINA, sailed into the Southern Ocean along a corridor of longitude centering on the line of 175°E., south of New Zealand. During their voyage they discovered the Balleny Islands, Feb 1839, and caught a brief sight of Antarctica itself at 64°58'S., 121°08'E.
John Balleny was born c 1770; may have been a Londoner, brought up in the Newcastle coal trade; from 1798, he is occasionally recorded in the coasting, home, and foreign trades as master of various vessels; master of the ELIZA SCOTT, 1838; died in or after 1842.
Eric Marshall was surgeon and cartographer on Ernest Shackleton's British Antarctic Expedition 1907-1909, he was one of the party of four who reached Furthest South on 9 Jan 1909.
Born, 1840; wood engraver until 1860; produced a series of commissioned alpine scenery sketches, 1860; Alpine climber, 1861-1865, including the first ascent of the Matterhorn, 1865; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, 1865-1911; expeditions to Greenland to study Arctic travel and ice phenomena, 1867 and 1872; expedition to the Andes, 1880; expeditions in the Canadian Rockies, early 1900s; died 1911.
Born, 1895; formally educated at Eton College and, for a year, at Balliol College, Oxford, which he left in Sep 1914 to join the Royal Field Artillery; served in France, 1914-1915; seconded to intelligence duties in Italy, 1916; staff officer in the Middle East and served in Libya, Sinai, Egypt, Palestine, and Syria; staff captain, Arab bureau, Damascus; joined the diplomatic service, 1919-1924; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), 1921-1978; journey in the southern Sahara, 1922; worked on the Stock Exchange, 1926-1929; journey in the southern Sahara, 1927; RGS's Cuthbert Peek award, 1927; RGS founder's medal, 1929; Bank of England, 1929-1932, (two years of which he was seconded to the Bank for International Settlements at Basel); merchant bank Morgan, Grenfell and Co.,1933-1967; Ministry of Economic Warfare, 1939; civil affairs administration, for the Middle East, east Africa, and Italy, 1942; President of the RGS, 1945-1948; member of the board of the British Overseas Airways Corporation, 1954-1965; RGS Honorary Member, 1971; died, 1978.
Unknown
Gertrude Caton-Thompson was born in London on 1 February 1888; educated privately and at the Links School, Eastbourne; employed by the Ministry of Shipping and promoted to a senior secretarial post in which she attended the Paris peace conference, 1917. She declined a permanent appointment in the civil service, and in 1921, aged thirty-three and with none of the usual qualifications, began archaeological studies under the Egyptologist Flinders Petrie at University College, London, joining his excavations at Abydos in Upper Egypt that winter. Caton-Thompson spent the next year at Newnham College; returned to Egypt in 1924 and joined Petrie and Guy Brunton at Qau el Kibir. While they concentrated their excavations on predynastic cemeteries she had concluded, well ahead of her time, that settlement sites would be more informative, embarking on her own excavations on the site of a predynastic village at Hamamiyyah, she made the first discovery of remains of the very early Badarian civilization.
In 1925 Caton-Thompson travelled to north-western Egypt and the desert margins of Lake El Faiyûm, accompanied by the Oxford geologist Elinor Gardner, to assist in an attempt to correlate lake levels with archaeological stratification discovering two unknown neolithic cultures which proved later to be related to the Khartoum neolithic. In 1929 Caton-Thompson received an invitation from the British Association for the Advancement of Science to investigate the great monumental ruins at Zimbabwe in southern Africa; confirmed the conclusion reached by David Randall-MacIver in 1905 that they belonged to an indigenous African culture and were not, as widely believed, of oriental origin and was also able to date the ruins back to the eighth or ninth century AD and to produce evidence of Zimbabwe's links with Indian Ocean trade.
Caton-Thompson's last excavations, in 1937, were at al-Huraydah in the Hadhramaut, southern Arabia, where she excavated the Moon Temple and tombs of the fifth and fourth centuries BC. They were the first scientific excavations in southern Arabia. Caton-Thompson retired from fieldwork after the World War Two and from her home in Cambridge pursued her research activities and visited excavations in east Africa. In 1961, she became a founding member of the British School of History and Archaeology in East Africa (later the British Institute in Eastern Africa), served on its council for ten years, and was later elected an honorary member. She received an honorary fellowship of Newnham College, Cambridge, and an honorary LittD (1954); Fellow of Royal Geographical Society 1934-1939; Fellow of the British Academy in 1944 and a Fellow of University College, London. She died on 18 April 1985.
Born 1883; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, 1914-1963; qualified as a surveyor, 1911; Second in Command of the Boundary Commission set up by the Bolivian Government to establish the boundary between Bolivia, Peru and Brazil, 1912; took command of the Commission, 1914; government service in Tanzania, 1920; government service in Uganda, his surveys included the Western Ugandan Railway and the Wilson Dam; died 1963.
Born, 1849; educated, King Edwards School, Birmingham; missionary work for the Baptist Missionary Society, Kamerun, 1878; transferred to the Congo; founded the station in Manyanga, 1882; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, 1882-1906; explored the Congo river; Royal Geographical Society Patrons medal, 1887; died, 1906.
Born, 1836; Professor of Surgery at Lahore University; Superintendant of Central Jail, Lahore; medical officer and scientist, political mission to Yarkand under Sir Douglas Forsyth, 1870; Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens and Professor of Botany, Calcutta University; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, 1871-1929, made a Life Fellow in 1871; died, 1929.
Geoffrey Pratt was a geophysicist on the 1955-1958 Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition team.
Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell was born at Washington Hall, County Durham, on 14 July 1868; educated at Queen's College, Harley Street, London, a leading girls' school, and at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, which she entered in April 1886 and after only two years, she gained a first in modern history in 1888. After completing her studies, Bell was sent by her family on a European tour, staying in Bucharest during 1888-1889; visited Constantinople early in 1889, returning to England later that year. The following three years were divided between the family home in Redcar and London. Bell later visited Persia in 1892 and on her return to England she was persuaded to publish, anonymously, a series of her travel sketches adapted from her letters, Safar Nameh, Persian Pictures (1894). During the 1890s Bell undertook travels to France, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland. In the summers of 1899-1904, with the brothers Ulrich and Heinrich Fuhrer as guides, she undertook a series of expeditions in the Alps, tacking the Meije in August 1899 and Mont Blanc in the following summer. She became attracted to travelling in the East and including visits to Syria and Jerusalem and began publishing her accounts of her journeys. She undertook many expeditions including a number with archaeologist, Sir William Ramsay.
Bell was elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in June 1913 soon after membership was opened to women. In Basrah in June 1916 she joined the staff of Sir Percy Cox, chief political officer with the expeditionary force, and was appointed assistant political officer, the only woman to hold formal rank within the force. Early in 1916 Bell was summoned to India and asked by Lord Hardinge to proceed to Basrah on a liaison mission as the viceroy's personal envoy in order to assess the effects of the Arab Bureau's schemes, whose approach differed from the India Office's imperial policy. After the capture of Baghdad from the Turks by Lieutenant-General Sir Stanley Maude in March 1917, Bell continued to act as Cox's right hand in the civil administration of Mesopotamia, as his oriental secretary in charge of daily contacts with the population. Sir Percy Cox became British high commissioner in October 1920 and enhanced the role for Bell as oriental secretary, a position she held under him and his successor until her death. Gertrude Bell's position in Iraq was eroded after Iraq's new constitution (1924) and administrative structures replaced the old, colonial order. She was often at odds with Cox's successor, Sir Henry Dobbs.
In 1917 she was appointed CBE; became a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, 1913-1926 and received the RGS Founders Medal 1918. Bell died in Baghdad, July 1926 and was buried on the evening of the 12th in the British military cemetery there.
Gerald Roe Crone was born in Willesden on 16 September 1899; educated at Kilburn Grammar School, 1910-1917 and St John's College, Cambridge, graduating in history. Crone spent one year working at Trinity College Library before beginning work at the Royal Geographical Society from 1923. He was proposed for a Fellowship by the Librarian Edward Heawood in 1934, and during World War Two it was Crone who largely facilitated the continued running of the Society. Crone was appointed Librarian and Map Curator in 1945; received the Murchison Grant in 1954 and was presented with the Victoria Medal in 1966 for 'outstanding contributions ... to the history of cartography and to the history of geographical thought'. He was a member of the International Geographical Union's Commission on Ancient Maps and played a significant role in Imago Mundi. Crowe died 6 October 1982.
Baptised, 1831; Royal Naval School, New Cross; entered the Royal Navy, 1845; midshipman in HMS CANOPUS; joined the HAVANNAH on the Australian station, 1848-1851; mate on HMS RESOLUTE, part of the Franklin search expedition under Sir Edward Belcher, 1852-1854; returned to England, 1854; served for two years in the Mediterranean in the CONQUEROR; joined the staff of the training ship ILLUSTRIOUS, 1858; joined the BRITANNIA, 1859; commander of the training ship BOSCAWEN, 1863; appointment to the paddle steamer SALAMANDER on the east coast of Australia, 1865; commander of the NEWPORT for hydrographical work in the Mediterranean, which included a survey of the Gulf of Suez via the Suez Canal, 1868; further hydrographical work in the SHEARWATER, 1871-1872; captain of HMS CHALLENGER, on a voyage of circumnavigation devoted to oceanographic exploration, 1872-1874; led the British Arctic expedition of 1875-1876, in the vessels ALBERT and DISCOVERY; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society , 1875; RGS Founder's medal, 1877; command of the ALERT during the survey of the Strait of Magellan, 1878; harbour department of the Board of Trade, 1879-1896; retired from active service, 1886; died, 1915.
Publications: The Naval Cadet's Guide (1860)
A Voyage to the Polar Sea (1878).
Awarded the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) in 1870 for his journey in Eastern Turkistan. On a second expedition to Gilgit and Yassin financed by the RGS he was murdered at Gilgit, 1870.
Born, 1810; entered for the East India Company's service and set out for India, 1827; engaged in reorganising the Persian army, 1833-1839; undertook tours in Susiana and Persian Kurdistan; awarded the gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), 1839; returned to India and was appointed assistant to Sir W. Macnaughton in Afghanistan; political agent for lower Afghanistan, 1842; political agent of the East India Company in Turkish Arabia, 1843; consul in Baghdad, 1844; Fellow of the RGS 1844-1895; RGS Council Member from 1850; Vice-President of the RGS, 1864, 1871, 1872, 1874, and 1875; Conservative MP for Reigate, 1858; MP for Frome, 1865-1868; member of the newly created Council of India, 1858; minister to Persia; died, 1895.
Born, 1858; Studied as an artist and zoologist; explored Central Africa 1882-1884; became British Consul in Cameroon and then Mozambique; British Commissioner for South Central Africa; KCB 1896; retired 1901; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, 1883-1927; RGS Founder's Medal 1904; Council Member and Vice President; died, 1927.
Born, 1806; educated for the evangelical ministry; joined the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society on its foundation, 1839 and helped to direct the attention of the Society to the hitherto neglected trans-Saharan and Mediterranean slave trade; undertook two missions in North Africa and the Sahara to gather information and statistics on slavery for the Anti-Slavery Society, 1842-1846; died on a third expedition to explore Lake Chad, 1851.
Born, 1783; tutored in Edinburgh; oversaw the family's sugar plantation at Berbice, Guiana, 1799-1811; sailed for India, 1813 where he sketched the scenery of the Himalayas and toured the region seeking the sources of the rivers Jumna and Ganges; crossed India via Delhi and Rajputana to Bombay, sketching and gathering geological information, 1820; travelled from Bombay to London via Bushehr, Shiraz, Esfahan, Tehran, Mashhad, Tabriz, and Tiflis, 1821-1823; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, 1838-1852; sent by the Foreign Office to report on Russian influence in Persia, 1833-1836; died, 1856.
Publications:
Views in the Himala Mountains
Views of Calcutta and its Environs
Narrative of a Journey into Khorasan in the Years 1821 and 1822 (1825)
Travels and Adventures in the Persian Provinces of the Southern Banks of the Caspian Sea (1826)
The Kuzzilbash, a Tale of Khorasan (1828)
The Persian Adventurer (1830)
The Highland Smugglers (1832)
Tales of the Caravanserai (1833)
Allee Neemro, the Buchtiaree Adventurer (1842)
The Dark Falcon (1844).
Military Memoir of Lieut. Col. James Skinner
Survey of India, -1880; Director General of the Siamese Government surveys, [1880]-1901; Royal Geographical Society Instructor, 1901-; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, 1883-.
The Royal Geographical Society (RGS) was founded in 1830 as the Royal Geographical Society of London. Its aim was the advancement of Geographical Science. The Society was granted a Royal Charter by Queen Victoria in 1859. In 1995 the RGS merged with the Institute of British Geographers (IBG) to create the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers). Since 1831 the Society has published a Journal, initially containing the principal papers read at the Society's evening meetings and abstracts of Geographical works published elsewhere, it is now a refereed academic publication. The journal has appeared under various titles: Journal of the RGS (JRGS) 1831-1880; Proceedings of the RGS (PRGS) 1857-1878; Proceedings of the RGS (New Series) (PRGS (NS)) 1879-1892; Supplementary Papers (1882-1893); and the Geographical Journal (GJ) 1893 onwards. At first edited by the Secretary of the Society, the preparation and editing of these journals is currently carried out by the Geographical Journal Office.
The Royal Geographical Society (RGS) was founded in 1830 as the Royal Geographical Society of London. Its aim was the advancement of Geographical Science. The Society was granted a Royal Charter by Queen Victoria in 1859. In 1995 the RGS merged with the Institute of British Geographers (IBG) to create the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers). Since 1831 the Society has published a Journal, initially containing the principal papers read at the Society's evening meetings and abstracts of Geographical works published elsewhere, it is now a refereed academic publication. The journal has appeared under various titles: Journal of the RGS (JRGS) 1831-1880; Proceedings of the RGS (PRGS) 1857-1878; Proceedings of the RGS (New Series) (PRGS (NS)) 1879-1892; Supplementary Papers (1882-1893); and the Geographical Journal (GJ) 1893 onwards. At first edited by the Secretary of the Society, the preparation and editing of these journals is currently carried out by the Geographical Journal Office.
Born, 1817; sheriff of Waterford, 1844; served in the Waterford militia; hunting expedition among the native people of western and north-western America, 1847; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, 1856-1867; led expedition in Canada to trace the course of the Southern Saskatchewan, evaluate the region for settlement, and exploring the Rockies for a southerly pass to British Columbia, 1857-1860; patron's gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society, 1859; died, 1887.
Publications: Adventures of a Hunter in the Prairies (1853)
Joseph S Kellet Smith was a surgeon who was attached to an expedition lead by R I Money in the country west of Lake Nyasa, [Malawi], 1875.
Sir Keith Alexander Jackson 2nd Baronet, was of the 4th Light Dragoons. He died in Caubul in 1843. He was married to Amelia née Waddell and their children included Sir Mountstuart Goodricke Jackson, 3rd Baronet (1836-1857) and Sir Keith George Jackson, 4th Baronet (1842-1916).
Born, 1887; military education at Cheltenham and Royal Military Academy, Woolwich; joined the Royal Engineers; joined the Survey of India, 1909; served in First World War; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), 1911-1976; RGS Cuthbert Peek Grant 1926; RGS Founder's Medal 1927; Chair of Geography, Oxford University, 1932-1953; RGS Council member 1932-1942 and 1952-1954; Acting RGS President, 1937; died, 1976.
Born, 1851, educated at University College School; read chemistry at University College London; ascended Mont Blanc, 1870; visited the USA and Canada, 1872; Egypt, 1873; expedition to find the source of the Congo, 1875-1876; died on the expedition 1876; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, 1875-1876.
No biographical information available at time of compilation.
Born, 1895; research plant pathologist in the Plant Pathology Department at the Rothamsted Experimental Station, 1917-1960; one of the original members of the newly formed Mycology Department, 1918; retired,1960; published her final paper in 1985; she was also a renowned climber and was one of the first women to scale mountains such as Fujiyama and the Matterhorn.
Unknown
Joined Royal Navy in 1859 and served on the Challenger Surveying Expedition, 1872-1875. Commanded survey vessels in the China Seas, the Red Sea, the Cape of Good Hope and elsewhere from 1877 to 1891. Rear Admiral 1898; Vice Admiral 1903; Admiral 1907. FRGS 1883-1930.
Robert Ernest Cheesman was born at Westwell, Kent, on 18 October 1878. His younger sister, (Lucy) Evelyn Cheesman (1881-1969), became a well-known entomologist, traveller, writer, and broadcaster. Cheesman was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, London, and Wye Agricultural College; worked for Sharpe and Winch, brewers, of Cranbrook, Kent and was a keen ornithologist. He was elected to the British Ornithologists' Union in 1908, and in 1912-1914 contributed notes to British Birds.
In 1914 Cheesman enlisted in the Buffs, served in India and in the attempted relief of Kut. In 1916 he met Sir Percy Cox, who shared his enthusiasm for birds. Together they undertook to collect the avifauna of Iraq. Cox wanted to organise the growing of vegetables for the troops and persuaded Cheesman to take a commission (1916) in the Indian army reserve of officers. Cheesman then became assistant to the deputy director of agriculture. While Cox was high commissioner in Iraq, Cheesman was his private secretary (1920-1923). He was elected to the British Ornithologists' Club in 1919, a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1920, and a corresponding member of the Zoological Society of London in 1921.
In 1921 Cheesman mapped the Arabian coast from Uqair to the head of the Gulf of Salwa. He was appointed OBE in 1923. In 1923-1924 he spent eleven weeks at Hufuf and then travelled to Jabrin, receiving the Royal Geographical Society's Gill memorial award in 1925 for this journey. In 1925 he became consul for north-west Ethiopia, resident at Dangila, as a member of the Sudan political service. He visited the source of the Blue Nile several times, first in March 1926. He mapped the river from Tisisat to Wanbera in January-April 1927, returning to Dangila through little-known country. He completed the map from Wanbera to the frontier in February-April 1929 and explored the river from its source to Lake Tana, correcting many cartographical errors, in 1932. He circumnavigated the lake, landing on all the bigger islands and making a compass traverse of the coast, in November 1932-April 1933. He retired in 1934, was made a commander of the Star of Ethiopia, and was appointed CBE, 1935. He received the Royal Geographical Society's patron's medal in 1936 for his explorations, which he described in Lake Tana and the Blue Nile (1936) and was Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society 1920-1962.
In 1940, at the request of the Governor-General of Sudan, Cheesman became head of the Ethiopian section of Intelligence, Sudan Defence Force, first as bimbashi, then as colonel. In 1942 Cheesman became oriental counsellor at the legation, Addis Ababa. In 1944 he retired finally to Cranbrook, having been mentioned in dispatches in both wars. He died on 13 February 1962 in Tunbridge Wells.
Dr Richard Julius Cyriax was born in Canonbury in 1885; educated at University College School, University College London and St Mary's Hospital and qualified in 1908 as Member of the Royal College of Surgeons and Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians of London with the DPH in 1917. Cyriax entered the public health service in 1920 as an Assistant Tuberculosis Officer for the Warwickshire and Coventry Joint Committee for Tuberculosis in Nuneaton, later moving to Leamington Spa. Cyriax was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, 1944-1967. He retired in 1951 and died in 16 January 1967.
Richard Routley Adams Richards was Chief Paymaster on board HMS CHALLENGER. He was uncle of Herbert Arthur Richards, (1866-1957).
Born, 1944; educated, Eton, Liveryman, Vintners' Company, 1960; French Parachutist Wings, 1965; Lt, Royal Scots Greys, 1966; Capt, 1968; attached 22 SAS Regiment, 1966; Sultan of Muscat's Armed Forces, 1968; Territorial and Army Volunteer Reserve, 1971; Capt, Royal Armoured Corps; leader of British expeditions: White Nile, 1969; Jostedalsbre Glacier, 1970; Headless Valley, 1971; (towards) North Pole, 1977; leader of the Trans Globe Expedition: first to journey around the world on its polar axis using surface transport only, 1979-1982; North Polar unsupported expeditions, 1986 and 1990; South Polar unsupported expedition: first crossing of the Antarctic continent and longest polar journey, 1992-1993; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) from 1970; awarded the RGS Founder's Medal, 1984.
Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society from 1964.
Born 1827; joined the merchant service, 1842; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, 1857-1915; volunteered for the Franklin search expedition of Captain Francis L McClintock, 1857-1860, and was sailing-master of the Fox during the voyage and commander of a sledge party, Feb-July, 1859, discovering 400 miles of new coast. Commanded an expedition to survey a route for a cable telegraph under the Atlantic ocean by way of Iceland and Greenland, 1860; assisted Admiral Sherard Osborn in equipping the Chinese navy and captain of the man-of-war Kwangtung during the Taiping rebellion, 1862-1864; attempted the northwest passage, and endeavoured to find the records of the lost Franklin expedition on King William's Land, in his yacht Pandora, 1875; refitted the Pandora for a second voyage with the same object and landed dispatches for Nares at Cape Isabella and Littleton Island, 1876; commanded the whaler Hope, chartered with government help, in order to search for the explorer, Benjamin Leigh Smith, 1882; died, 1915.
Studied at University College London and appointed lecturer at the London School of Economics in 1929. Served in the Geographical Intelligence Division of the Admiralty during World War Two, specialising in railways and south east Europe. In 1950 became founding Professor of Geography at Keele. Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, 1930-1984. Member of the Council of the Royal Geographical Society, 1943-1947. Received the Murchison Grant in 1962.
Born, 1796; entered the navy as midshipman, 1808; taken prisoner by the French at Deba, 1808; midshipman to the Akbar, 1814; Admiralty mate of the Bulwark, 1817; volunteered for service in the Trent, under Sir John Franklin, who was then entering on the first modern voyage of discovery in the Spitsbergen seas, 1818; expedition with Franklin by land to the Coppermine River,1819-1821; appointed to the Superb, 1823; join Franklin's expedition to the Mackenzie River, 1824-1826; expedition to find Captain Ross, 1833-1835; Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, 1836-1878; Vice President and member of the RGS Council; RGS Gold Medallist - Royal award, 1835; commander of an expedition to complete the coast line between Regent's Inlet and Cape Turnagain, 1836; President of the Raleigh Club, 1844; Fellow of the Royal Society, 1847; employed by government to report on the harbour of Holyhead; died, 1878.
Winifred May A Brooke was an artist and botanist and was a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society 1969-1981.
Alan Cawley was a Geological Surveyor in the Department of Lands and Mines, Tanganika in late 1930s and became a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, 1936-1949.
Paul Belloni du Chaillu was born in France on 31 July 1835. He accompanied his father to Gabon at a young age and in 1852 travelled to United States and was entrusted by the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia with a mission to West Africa, setting out in 1855 to Gabon. Du Chaillu was, or claimed to be the first European to kill a gorilla in the wild. In 1867 he again travelled to Africa and hoped to reach the Congo and the Nile. The map accompanying the account of the expedition 'A journey to Ashango Land' (London, 1867) is based upon 15 observed latitutes and 7 longitudes and until his obituary was published in 1903, was the only authority on the geography of the greater part of the country delineated. He was rewarded with honorary membership of the Royal Geographical Society. Following this he spent a few years in United States and wrote books for children including 'Stories of the Gorilla Country' (1867), he died in 1903.
No biographical information available at time of compilation.