Read British Empire: Expansion & Exploration
Part I HERE:
The other great region of exploration, albeit in a
limited form, for most of the leading western European states was the coastal
areas of the African continent, where gold, ivory and slaves could be purchased
by sea-borne traders and then sold at home, or in the New World, where
Portugal, Spain, Britain, France and the Netherlands were beginning to establish
their overseas empires. One of the earliest English explorers of the region and
therefore one of England’s first slave traders was said to be John Hawkins, who
was thought to have followed the example of other merchants, John Lok and
William Towerson, who were reported to have purchased a small number of Black
African slaves during the middle of the 16th century. However,
Hawkins was said to be different from these earlier traders, in that he
purposefully set out to purchase slaves, with the expressed intent of making a
profit from each leg of what became commonly known as the Triangular Trade.
Setting out on his first voyage in 1555, Hawkins
was reported to have directed his three ships towards the west coast of Africa,
with the intention of purchasing slaves, gold dust and ivory from the region
later called Sierra Leone, although in the event he was said to have captured a
Portuguese slave ship carrying some three hundred or so Black African slaves,
which he subsequently stole from the unfortunate Portuguese traders. Setting
off across the Atlantic and having reached the New World, Hawkins was reported
to have sold his human cargo to the Spanish authorities in Santo Domingo,
making significant profits, both for himself and his financial backers in
London. As a consequence of his having arrived in the New World with a cargo of
slaves, a business dominated by themselves and the Portuguese, the Spanish
authorities in the West Indies were thought to have later banned their American
colonies from trading with visiting English merchants.
Reportedly making a second voyage across the
Atlantic to trade for African slaves in 1563, Hawkins returned to the Americas
with his second human cargo, which he was said to have sold to planters in the
Caribbean, before beginning the long voyage home to England, where he was
warmly welcomed by his financial supporters. In the following year, the English
seafarer was said to have organised yet another voyage to West Africa, this
time with the support of the Tudor monarch, Elizabeth I, who was equally keen
to benefit from this new and highly lucrative trade, even providing Hawkins
with a 700 ton ship called the “Jesus of Lubeck”, which could be used to carry
an even larger human cargo. Once again though, rather than trading for African
slaves directly, Hawkins was thought to have simply waylaid those Portuguese
slave ships that he came across on the west coast of Africa, relieving them of
their cargoes, which he later transported and sold in Venezuela and Columbia,
making himself and his backers a tidy profit in the process. On at least one
occasion, local Spanish officials were said to have tried to prevent Hawkins
from selling his slaves for a profit by threatening to impose swingeing taxes
on the transaction, although the English captain’s subsequent threats to burn
down their town, were thought to have resolved the issue in the Englishman’s
favour, allowing him to retain his ill-gotten gains, which he later returned
with to England.
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| John Hawkins |
Following in the footsteps of the likes of Drake, Raleigh,
John Smith and the many others, a new generation of British maritime explorers
and traders came to replace them, although not always achieving the level of
public recognition, or acceptance that these earlier, much more notable
seafarers ultimately received. As time progressed and attitudes changed, so the
status of Britain’s privateers became inexorably altered, putting them outside
of the law and thereby lessening their contribution to Britain’s maritime
expansion and the country’s knowledge of previously unidentified and unclaimed
lands. One of the earliest of these late 17th and early 18th
century explorers was William Dampier, who was reportedly born at East Coker,
Somerset in August 1651 and who went on to be acclaimed by some, as the
greatest post Elizabethan explorer of his age, a title he was thought to have
held until the later voyages of the legendary Englishman, James Cook.
Beginning his naval career as a teenager aboard a
merchant ship sailing to North America, Dampier later travelled to Java in
modern day Indonesia before returning home to join the Royal Navy as a twenty
two year old, although his service was said to have been temporarily cut short
after he became seriously ill and was forced to return home to recuperate.
However, rather than immediately returning to sea, Dampier was thought to have
travelled to the Caribbean where he had relatively short and unsuccessful
careers as a plantation manager and then as a logger in the forests of Mexico.
In 1679 he was reported to have returned to the sea, joining the crew of the
English buccaneer, Captain Bartholomew Sharp, who was said to have been
operating in and around the Caribbean and South America, targeting Spanish
ships that were travelling in and out of the region. Having spent some years
with Sharp, Dampier was then said to have made his way north to Virginia, where
he became involved with another band of privateers and buccaneers, including
Edward Davis and Charles Swan, during which time he was said to have travelled
as far as the East Indies, where they visited the islands of Guam and Mindanao,
as well as navigating the coasts of China, Indonesia and Australia.
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| William Dampier |
Almost instantly Dampier’s tales were thought to
have attracted the interest of the British Admiralty, who were eager to employ
the former buccaneer in their service, offering him command of the ship
“Roebuck” in 1699, with a commission to explore the east coast of New Holland,
the lands, which were later to become known as Australia. Setting out in January
1699, Dampier had originally planned to reach New Holland (Australia) via Cape
Horn, at the tip of South America, but given the date of his departure he was
forced to travel by the more conventional route, via the Cape of Good Hope in
Southern Africa. Following the usual trade routes of the time, the “Roebuck”
and its crew were reported to have reached the southern Pacific by the middle
of 1699 and on 26th July were said to have arrived at the mouth of
Shark Bay in Western Australia. Within days of their arrival Dampier was said
to have gone ashore and began documenting the various flora and fauna that
existed in these new territories, before beginning a voyage northward,
collecting examples of the numerous plants, shells and wildlife that he could
find, all of which were meticulously recorded by Dampier and his assistants.
Further north again, by December 1699 the “Roebuck”
was said to have reached New Guinea, where Dampier recorded and charted the
coastlines of the various islands, as well as collecting whatever specimens he
could manage, which were added to the already vast collection stored onboard
his vessel. Although he had intended to explore the east coast of Australia, as
per his original commission, the rotten state of the “Roebuck”, allied to an
incompetent ships carpenter prevented this, forcing him instead to begin the
return journey home, well before he had intended. Unfortunately, by the time
the ship had rounded the Cape of Good Hope and sailed into the Atlantic the
vessel was said to be leaking heavily, leaving Dampier with little option but
to deliberately run the “Roebuck” aground on Ascension Island, stranding the
crew and its precious cargo. With the carpenter unable to make the ship
seaworthy again, Dampier and his men were reported to have been marooned on the
island for well over a month, before a passing ship called at Ascension and was
able to return the crew to England, where they arrived in August 1701, some two
and a half years after they had first left there.
Although much of his cargo and many of his records
were thought to have been lost as a result of the ships poor condition, enough
were saved to make the expedition worthwhile, especially the charts and records
he had made regarding trade winds and tidal currents in the South Pacific.
Sadly for Dampier, his earlier removal of a crewman from the ship, which
resulted in the man being jailed, came back to haunt him, as the seaman in
question returned to England and made a formal complaint regarding Dampier’s
action. As a consequence, when Dampier returned home in August 1701 he was
charged with cruelty by the Admiralty, found guilty and dismissed from the
Royal Navy, leaving him with no wages for his work and with no immediate
prospect of a career. However, once again he was able to publish stories of his
expedition to the Pacific, particularly his adventures in Australia, which he
titled “A Voyage to New Holland”, although according to some reports the
outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701, also provided a new form
of employment for the unemployed mariner, who was said to have simply resumed
his career as a British privateer.
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| Abel Tasman |
As for Dampier, as the war progressed, he was
reported to have been employed as sailing master aboard the “Duke”, under the
command of Woodes Rogers and was thought to have been responsible for rescuing
the abandoned Alexander Selkirk from his uninhabited island, as well as taking
prizes worth in excess of £200,000, which Rogers and his crew would have shared
once they returned to England. Sadly for Dampier though, he never received a
penny of his share of the prize money, as he was reported to have died in
London in 1715, just before the monies were awarded. Although he failed to gain
the level of public recognition that was lavished on the likes of Raleigh,
Drake and later Cook, Vancouver, etc. Dampier’s voyages and his skilful
recording of the flora and fauna of the Pacific region, were thought to have
informed, inspired and underpinned the later expeditions of people such as
Charles Darwin and James Cook, as well as causing the voyage of the HMS Bounty,
famous for its commander William Bligh and his mutinous assistant, Fletcher
Christian, who initially set out to find specimens of “bread fruit” from the
Pacific region.
Ultimately, the Age of Discovery is thought to have
simply resulted in the widespread exploitation of the planet’s natural and
human resources, in part through the foundation of the Transatlantic Slave
Trade, the growth of the spice and drugs trades, as well as the extensive
exploitation of the earth’s naturally occurring mineral deposits. It also said
to have marked the introduction of new and previously unknown crops into
Europe, such as maize and molasses, potatoes and tobacco, which would
ultimately earn great wealth for those involved with their cultivation and
importation.
Sadly, this period also marked the start of large scale
land seizures from the native tribes of the various subject countries and the
spread of Christianity which would go on to supplant many of the native
religions that had existed in their home countries from the beginning of time.
For England’s seafarers, by the middle of the 17th century many of
the world’s previously unknown regions had already been discovered, if not
fully explored, although many would continue to be fought over in the following
centuries, as the competing leading European powers sought to extend their
influence over as much of the known world as possible. The only region of the
world that was reported to have remained largely undiscovered by the first half
of the 17th century was the far southern ocean, where it was
speculated an unknown continent existed. For hundreds of years, scientists,
explorers and cartographers had claimed that unknown lands existed in these
faraway waters, although in most cases there was little to support the claims,
other than legend, speculation and even mathematical calculations.
However, in 1603 the Dutch explorer, Willem
Janszoon, was thought to have been the first European to have sighted the
coastline of Australia for the first time, although he made no attempt to
investigate the local waters, or to land there. Three years later though,
Janszoon was said to have returned to the region, with the intention of mapping
this previously undiscovered coastline, beginning his journey around the modern
day region of Queensland, where he and members of his crew were reported to
have landed. Unfortunately, it later transpired that the Dutchman ultimately
failed to recognise the territory as being part of an entirely separate
continent, but simply believed that it was a yet another part of the New
Guinea chain of islands.
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| Captain William Bligh |
Born in October 1728, in the village Marton, North
Yorkshire, James Cook was the second child of a local farm labourer, who was
fortunate enough to catch the attention of his father’s employer, the local
landowner, who paid for the young James to attend the local school, thereby
guaranteeing him the benefit of a formal education. Having been employed as a
farm worker, then as a shop assistant, around 1746 the young James Cook was
said to have made the acquaintance of a local ship owner called Walker, who
owned a fleet of vessels in the port of Whitby. Having taken a liking to the
18-year-old James, Walker subsequently offered him a position as an apprentice
on one of his colliers that regularly shipped coal up and down the English
coast, allowing James the opportunity to escape the drudgery of his previous
employment. Over the period of the next few years Cook was said to have served
on a number of the company’s vessels, learning the practical skills that would
serve him so well in his later naval career, along with the vitally important
subjects of astronomy, trigonometry, geometry and navigation. Having completed
his three year apprenticeship with the company, Cook was then able to serve on
bigger, more widely ranging vessels that operated in and around the Baltic
region, allowing him to gain even greater experience within the British
merchant marine service. However, by 1755 and with the prospect of war with
France looming on the horizon, Cook was said to have made one of the most
important decisions of his life and applied to join the Royal Navy and was
accepted into the service in June 1755.
Progressing quickly through the ranks, Cook was
said to have successively held the post of master’s mate, boatswain, as well as
temporarily holding the position of master on a number of occasions, when he
was put in charge of smaller naval vessels. During the Seven Years War, which
was fought between 1756 and 1763 and that was generally waged in and around the
territories of North America, Cook was thought to have distinguished himself
through being involved in several notable engagements against the French. His
own particular skills in navigation and cartography were also thought to have
been noted, allowing British forces to identify possible lines of approach in
their attacks along the St Lawrence River, for which Cook gained significant
personal recognition. With a peace treaty signed in 1763, Cook’s abilities as a
map maker, navigator and surveyor were thought to have been put to good use
when he was asked to map the entire coastline of Newfoundland, a task that he
was said to have completed so well that he quickly came to the attention of the
Admiralty, who were keen to obtain as many detailed maps of the world as
possible. As a direct result of his work in North America, in 1766 Cook was
promoted to the rank of Lieutenant and was given command of a Royal Society
expedition to the Pacific Ocean, principally to track the transit of Venus
across the Sun, although it was clearly a voyage that would also allow him to
map the coastlines of the South Atlantic and Pacific islands as he travelled to
his ultimate destination. Setting out from England in 1768, the Royal Navy
expedition was said to have travelled south across the Atlantic, down past Cape
Horn and west to the island of Tahiti, where they arrived in April 1769, just
in time for their astronomical observations to be made.
However, although the observations they made were
later reported to be inconclusive, it was whilst they were in the Pacific
region that Cook was said to have mapped the entire coastline of New Zealand,
as well as the whole length of Australia’s east coast, the first time the
region had ever been recorded by a European explorer. It was said that it was
during these initial investigations into the coastline of Australia that the
first sightings of the indigenous peoples, the Australian Aborigines, were
reported, although it was only after he landed in Botany Bay on the 29th
April 1770 that they had their first full encounter with the native tribes of
the new continent. Having spent a brief time exploring the area around this
first landfall, during which various specimens were collected for the British
societies, Cook and his crew turned the HMS Endeavour northward and began the
long journey home, although they were subsequently delayed after the ship was
accidentally grounded on a reef, requiring some remedial work to be undertaken.
However, with the vessel repaired they were said to have resumed their voyage,
stopping briefly in Indonesia, before rounding the Cape of Good Hope and
sailing northward to England, which they were reported to have reached in July
1771, some three years after they had first set out.
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| Captain James Cook |
For his part, Cook was said to have continued with
his Antarctic explorations, once again sailing to the ice bound continent, but
turning back to Tahiti just before he reached the frozen wastes. However,
determined to put an end to the rumours of an unknown southern continent, Cook
subsequently returned to the icy waters of Antarctica, if only to satisfy
himself that no such place existed, which he was finally able to do by 1774,
having charted and mapped most of the region. As they set their course for home
the crew of the “Resolution” was reported to have stopped at a number of the
Pacific islands, where the ship was re-provisioned and their charts updated.
Having returned safely to England aboard
“Resolution”, such was the scope, accuracy and length of his well charted
voyages that James Cook was said to be regarded as the foremost European
explorer of the age, an accolade that earned him yet another naval promotion,
this time to the rank of Captain. However, simply because of his public value
and his age, the British Admiralty were thought to have retired him from active
service, although Cook himself was said to have been keen to carry on with his
career. As a result, when in 1776 a new expedition was planned to try and
discover the fabled Northwest Passage the great explorer was eager to be the
man to lead it. Commanding “Resolution” once again, he was accompanied on his
third voyage by “Discovery”, which was captained by Charles Clerke, a seasoned
mariner who had previously sailed with Cook on his earlier journey to the
Pacific. Travelling first to the Pacific to return his Tahitian guide to his
home island, Cook then turned north, visiting the Hawaiian Islands, becoming
the first European to do so, before travelling on in search of his objective.
Turning northeast, the two ships were reported to have travelled along the west
coast of America, north towards the strait leading to Vancouver Island, where
the crews were said to have spent several weeks exploring the hinterlands.
Whilst they were there Cook and some of his men were thought to have made
contact with the local Yuquot people, who although pleasant enough were not
entirely trusted by all of the English crewmen. Having left the area after
about a month the vessels then proceeded along the Bering Straits, which Cook
and his officers mapped, creating some of the most complete maps of the region
and helping to fill in some of the gaps that had existed on all previous
navigation charts. However, so severe were the conditions along the route of
the Bering Straits that Cook and his ships were unable to fully navigate the
entire length of the route, causing immense frustration for the English commander,
which he was said to have visited on his crew, whenever he was sick or
melancholic.
Returning to Hawaii in 1779, Cook and his ships
were said to have spent some weeks in the area, having been warmly received by
the local tribesmen, who were thought to have treated the Englishmen with quite
high regard. Eventually though the crews returned to their respective ships in
order to resume their exploration of the Northern Pacific, but almost as soon
as they got underway, one of the masts on “Resolution” broke, preventing the
ship from continuing on and forcing it back to Hawaii for repairs. Even though
they had only just left the island, as they landed once again, the mood of the
local people was reported to have been far more belligerent, causing tensions
to arise between the two sides. The situation was then said to have been
worsened, when one of the English crew’s boats was stolen by some of the
islanders, much to the annoyance of Cook, who was said to have tried to hold
the local chief hostage, until such time as the stolen boat was returned to
him.
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| George Vancouver |
Despite the loss of Captain Cook however, the Royal
Navy’s exploration and mapping of the world’s great continental coastlines
continued unabated, with a succession of navigators, astronomers, cartographers
and scientists continuing to try and identify the new lands, waterways, plants
and animals that existed in these foreign lands, thereby adding to their own
knowledge of the natural world. Even though most of the earth’s oceans were
thought to have been visited and most of the world’s main nation states
identified by the time of Cook’s death in 1779, still vast internal regions of
these various waterways and massive continental areas remained mysterious,
uncharted and therefore potentially attractive to those explorers and
merchants, who were prepared to risk all for the for the possibility of finding
something that was of great interest, beauty or value. By the second half of
the 18th century Britain was said to have emerged as the pre-eminent
European sea power of the age, largely as a result of having destroyed the
naval power of the competing French and Spanish empires, allowing British
navigators free reign over many of the world’s oceans, inland waterways and
coastal sea lanes. Although James Cook rose to become the foremost naval
explorer of his generation, even to the point of being granted free passage by
Britain’s enemies, his work and the development of scientific organisations
such as the Royal Society had created an imperative, to see that every part of
the known world was visited, charted, catalogued and reported.
One of James Cook’s many Royal Navy contemporaries
was said to be George Vancouver, who was reported to have commanded a number of
exploratory expeditions in and around North America’s Pacific region, Alaska,
Hawaii and the southern coast of Australia. Born in June 1757, Vancouver was
thought to have served aboard Cook’s ship “Resolution” during his second voyage
between 1772 and 1775, with the teenage Vancouver serving as a midshipman on
the English survey vessel. Similarly he was said to have been part of the
famous navigator’s third voyage between 1776 and 1778, although this time
serving on the “Discovery” and in company with his shipmates was present in
Hawaii when Cook was killed by local tribesmen. When the two English vessels
returned to Britain in 1779 the young George Vancouver was subsequently
promoted to the rank of Lieutenant and posted to the “Martin”, which was
assigned the task of mapping various Pacific coastlines for the Admiralty and
Royal Society.
However, during the time the vessel was at sea,
Spain was thought to have sent their own naval expedition into the northwest
region of the Pacific, not only to chart the area, but also to reassert their
own sovereignty and trading rights there. Having arrived in the region of the
Columbia River and Sitka Sound, the Spanish force immediately seized those
British merchant vessels found operating there, causing the British authorities
to demand compensation for their loss, which the Spanish subsequently refused
to pay, leading to the possibility of war between the two nations. As part of
the Royal Navy’s presence in the Pacific, Vancouver was reported to have been
transferred to a British warship, in readiness for a military confrontation
with the Spanish, although as it turned out a diplomatic solution was found
that prevented all out war between the two European neighbours, resulting in
the signing of the Nootka Convention in 1790.
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| James Bruce |
Around the same time that the likes of James Cook
and George Vancouver were exploring the world’s oceans and coastlines, other
Britons, including the Scottish explorer, James Bruce, were beginning to
investigate the hinterlands of these previously unknown and uncharted lands. Born
at Kinnaird, Stirlingshire in December 1730, Bruce was thought to have been
born into a wealthy landowning family, with an expectation that he would marry
well and settle down into some or other profession, possibly as a lawyer.
However, despite marrying the daughter of a wealthy local merchant, her
unexpectedly early death soon after they were married and then the later loss
of his father, ultimately provided Bruce with the freedom and means to pursue
an alternative career, first as a diplomat and then as a traveller and writer.
Posted to Algiers as a British Consular official in
1763, he soon began to explore the historical ruins of the region, particularly
those remaining from the Roman Empire, which he examined and recorded,
beginning an interest that remained with him for the remainder of his life.
Having visited a large number of the ancient sites in Algeria, Bruce
subsequently travelled overland from Tunis to Tripoli, before taking ship to
Heraklion in Greece, although he was reported to have been shipwrecked off the
coast of Libya and forced to swim ashore to the port of Benghazi in Libya.
Having recovered from his ordeal he was then said to have travelled onto Crete
and then Sidon in the Lebanon, before making his way to Syria, where he visited
the ancient cities and once again studied and sketched the architectural
remnants of the once great ancient civilisations.
Having determined to discover the source of the
Nile River, in 1768, Bruce was thought to have travelled to Alexandria in Egypt
and enlisted the aid of the local ruler, Ali Bey Al-Kabir, who helped the
Scottish explorer cross the desert to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, where he remained
for some weeks before crossing the Red Sea to the Ethiopian port city of
Massawa, which was temporarily held by the Turks. Travelling to the then
capital of Ethiopia, Gondar, where he was reported to have been warmly welcomed
at the Ethiopian court, so much so that he was thought to have remained there
for very nearly two years, during which time he was able to record the lives of
the native peoples there. By October 1770 Bruce was said to have resumed his
journey to find the source of the Nile and a month or so later was reported to
have arrived at Gish Abay, the source of the Blue Nile, which was located in Central
Ethiopia. Believing himself to be the first European to have visited the source
of the Blue Nile, in December of the following year, Bruce was said to have set
out on his second expedition, to find the confluence of the Blue and White Nile
Rivers, a journey that required him to travel from the region of Sennar in
Northern Sudan, to the region of Nubia, which was divided between Northern
Sudan and Southern Egypt.
Despite the difficulty of the terrain, eventually
Bruce and his travelling companions were said to have found the meeting of the
two ancient rivers, although their subsequent journey out of the region and
back to Cairo was thought to have been both fraught and highly dangerous, with
Bruce only narrowly escaping threats to his life on a number of occasions.
However, thanks largely to good fortune and the efforts of his local
associates, in January 1773 Bruce managed to reach Cairo, where he subsequently
took ship for Europe, arriving back in France, where he soon met up with former
acquaintances who were anxious to hear about his travels and adventures. When
he returned to Britain in 1774 however, the stories of his travels and his
subsequent journeys to the source and confluence of the Nile Rivers were
thought to have been dismissed by many experts who thought them to be too
fantastic to be believed. Even when he published his exploits in 1790, there
were many so called experts who continued to doubt his reports of the regions,
although in later years virtually all of his reports and recordings would prove
to be relatively accurate, thus restoring his reputation and credibility
somewhat. It was only after some of his work and findings were confirmed and
authenticated that Bruce was eventually accepted as one of the leading
explorers and travel writers of his age, adding much to his successor’s
knowledge of this previously unknown part of the world.
Back on the North American continent and
particularly in the region of what would later become British North America, or
Canada, one of the earliest and most successful British explorers was thought
to be David Thompson, an English born trader, surveyor and cartographer, who
helped map a significant proportion of Britain’s North American territories.
Born at Westminster, London in April 1770, when he was two years of age
Thompson’s father was reported to have died and as a result, he and his brother
were placed in a Church of England boarding school for the poor, where the
young David was reported to have shown such an aptitude for learning that he was
selected to receive additional education, including mathematics and the
associated subjects of astronomy, trigonometry and navigation. As a consequence
of having learned these highly valuable skills, when the teenage Thompson
turned fourteen years old he was apprenticed to a commercial enterprise, The
Hudson Bay Company, where his skills might be put to some good use and his
future employment ensured.
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| David Thompson |
In 1806, the North West Company asked Thompson to
undertake a survey to identify a trade route through to the Pacific Ocean, in
response to the earlier American backed Lewis and Clarke expedition, which had
been undertaken between 1804 and 1806. The North West Company’s young surveyor
was reported to have begun his exploration of the entire length of the Columbia
River in 1807, having first crossed the Rocky Mountains and was said to have
spent much of the next few years exploring and mapping the region of the Columbia
River basin, as well as establishing a number of new trading posts for his
employers. Travelling through what would later become Western Canada, Northern
Montana, Idaho and Washington, Thompson’s expeditions not only resulted in some
of the most detailed maps of the various regions, but also helped the North
West Company extend their trading operations over a much wider area, helping
them to become one of the most successful merchant company’s in all of North
America. Thompson was thought to have continued his career right through to
1812, when at the age of forty two, he returned to his family home in Montreal
to begin work on his greatest achievement, an almost complete map of the
interior of North America, which was thought to be so accurate that it
continued to be used for the next century or more.
However, despite having compiled one of the most
important and truly accurate maps of the age by 1815, Thompson subsequently
continued with his exploration and charting of his homeland, so that by 1843 he
was able to produce the most comprehensive map of the North American region,
stretching from Hudson Bay in the east, to the Pacific Ocean in the west.
Unfortunately for the great explorer and cartographer, in later life his
failing eyesight prevented him from continuing with his work from around 1851
and for the remaining six years of his life he was thought to have been unable
to complete many of the projects that had been so important to him. One of
these was his proposed book recalling his lifetime as a fur trader and explorer
in North America, although in later years Thompson’s numerous diaries and
notebooks were recovered by the academic J B Tyrell, who was finally able to
publish an account of the late cartographer’s career and life.
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| Mungo Park |
Back across the Atlantic, in continental Africa, a
Scottish born explorer, Mungo Park, was thought to be one of the first
Europeans to travel into the interior of West Africa, reportedly becoming the
first westerner to view the River Niger in what is now the African state of
Mali. Born in September 1771 near Selkirk in Scotland, Park’s parents were said
to be reasonably wealthy tenant farmers, who had been able to provide their
thirteen children with a fairly good level of education, allowing the young
Mungo to find employment as an apprentice to a local surgeon, Thomas Anderson,
as a result of which he later attended Edinburgh University in 1788, where he
was said to have studied medicine and botany.
Completing his medical studies by January 1793,
Park was said to have been appointed as the assistant surgeon aboard the
vessel, “Worcester”, which was sailing to the port of Bengkulu, on the island
of Sumatra, in what is now modern day Indonesia. Having returned safely from
his initial voyage, the twenty three year old Mungo was said to have offered
his services to the African Association, which was otherwise known as the
Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa, a club
dedicated to the exploration of West Africa. Ostensibly aimed at discovering
the source of the Niger River and the legendary city of Timbuktu, purportedly
the “lost city of gold”, the Association was happy to accept the young Mungo
Park’s application and by June 1795 he was thought to have arrived at the
Gambia River, ready to begin the two hundred mile journey to the isolated
British outpost located close to the Mandingo homelands. Having reached this
last western settlement, Park and two native guides reported to have set out
into what were then largely undiscovered territories, in order to find the
source of the Niger River, although the journey itself was said to have proved
to be extremely difficult and ultimately resulted in the Scottish explorer
being captured by a local Moorish leader, who held him prisoner for several
months before Park’s was finally able to escape.
Unfortunately, his capture had left him alone in
foreign lands, but armed only with a compass and a horse he was said to have
navigated his way to the Niger River in Mali, a remarkable achievement
considering his own limited circumstances. Beginning his return journey by
following the course of the river as far as possible, Mungo was said to have
avoided further problems with the native tribesmen, although given the conditions
and his lack of supplies, by the time he reached Bamako, the capital of Mali,
he was said to be seriously ill and forced to rely on the kindness of local
people who were reported to have cared for him over the next few months until
he had fully recovered from his illness. Finally making his way back to a
British settlement, Park eventually managed to return to Scotland by December
of 1797, where his return was greeted with disbelief by his family and friends
who had previously thought him to be dead. His employers, the African
Association were also very quick to report his discovery of the Niger River, an
event that not only caused much excitement within the British establishment,
but also amongst the British public who were fascinated by the young explorer’s
tales of adventure in the African continent.
 |
| John Hanning Speke |
Unfortunately, by the time the expedition finally
reached the Niger by the middle of August 1805 only a dozen or so of the
original party had managed to survive the treacherous journey, with most of the
others having died or become incapacitated through disease, most notably
dysentery. However, having reached the Malian capital of Bamako and been
granted permission to travel down to Sengou, Parks and his surviving comrades
were reported to have travelled down the Niger by boat, although virtually all
of them were reported to have been in extremely poor health and in no real
condition to undertake the arduous journey. Regardless of their situation
though, Parks and his surviving European colleagues were said to have pressed
on along the length of the Niger, in search of Timbuktu, despite being
regularly attacked by native tribes as they sailed through the various tribal
homelands. Rather foolishly perhaps, instead of asking for help from the local
peoples, the British explorers were thought to have pressed on alone, until
finally their boat became stuck on a rocky outcrop and could not be released
through their own efforts. Being attacked by local tribes and with no escape by
boat, Parks and his few remaining men were said to have jumped into the river
in an attempt to escape their predicament, but given their weakened condition
were simply swept away and drowned in the fast moving river.
Although it was some time before the fate of Mungo
Park and his fellow travellers was known, investigations by the British
authorities, later confirmed that all of the European explorers had indeed
perished, despite the fact that some people continued to believe that they had
survived, only to be held prisoner by one or other local ruler. Ultimately
though, despite Parks’ career as an explorer being relatively short lived and
his own final demise immensely tragic, his initial search for the Niger River
and his seemingly heroic travels on the African continent ensured his elevation
to the status of a hero within the British Empire, creating an example that
many others would continue to follow throughout the 19th and early
20th centuries.
Along with Livingstone, Stanley and Speke, one of
the other most notable successors to Mungo Parks was thought to be Richard
Francis Burton, a former East India Company officer who would not only make a
name for himself as a noted British explorer, but also as a bit of a social
renegade, who defied convention as easily as he placed himself in harms way.
Born at Torquay in Devon on 19th March
1821, Burton was born to a serving British officer and his wealthy heiress
wife, who travelled widely, which resulted in their three children receiving
much of their early education from a variety of nannies and private tutors. It
was thought to be as a result of this extensive travelling that the young
Richard Burton became interested in the study of various foreign languages,
including Italian, French and Latin, which he was said to have picked up at a fairly
early age, a linguistic ability that would serve him so well in later years.
Although he was known to have received a reasonably good standard of formal
education, both at Preparatory School and at Trinity College, Oxford, the young
Francis was reported to have found the strict social conventions of these
academies difficult to bear, not least because of his personal interests in
other less formal subjects such as riding, falconry and later pursuing the
fairer sex, interests that ultimately led to him being expelled from college in
1842. With few ideas of what particular career to pursue and no doubt
influenced by his father’s own military background, eventually Burton was said
to have chosen a career with the British East India Company, the merchant venture
company that offered the promise of travel, excitement and action, as well as
being the place where many of his closest friends had also found employment.
Although he was thought to have been posted to India at a time when no major
conflicts were being fought by the company, the subcontinent was said to have
appealed to him purely because of the various languages and dialects that were
spoken there, allowing the linguistically gifted Burton to involve himself in
the traditions and customs of the different indigenous peoples, a practice that
was said to have brought him much criticism from those colleagues who
considered themselves to be superior to the native tribesmen of India.
 |
| Richard Burton |
Having returned to India in 1854 and rejoined his
regiment, Burton was subsequently posted to Aden where he was assigned to lead
an expedition supported by the Royal Geographical Society, designed to explore
the hinterland of Somalia, where a number of great inland lakes were rumoured
to exist, a series of tales that Burton was particularly interested in
investigating. It was during this expedition that Burton first met Lieutenant
John Hanning Speke, who shared Burton’s love of adventure and who would later
join him in some of his most notable explorations and discoveries. However, as
the expedition arranged to set out on their journey, they were reported to have
been attacked by a band of several hundred Somali warriors, who killed and
wounded a number of the party before being driven off. Speke was said to have
received numerous wounds as a result of the action, although he survived them
to undertake further adventures, whilst Burton was reported to have been struck
in the head by a spear, which penetrated one cheek and exited through the
other, leaving a significant wound that he would carry for the rest of his life.
Following the failure of the expedition, in 1855 Burton rejoined his army unit
once again and was posted to the Crimea where he hoped to see action, although
the regiment he was attached to was subsequently disbanded following a refusal
to obey orders, a mutinous act that somehow attached itself to Burton’s
reputation, although there was no direct evidence of his own involvement in
this particular incident.
Having been cleared of any wrongdoing in the
previous expedition, in 1856 Burton was once again asked to head a Royal
Geographical Society survey mission to Africa, this time to investigate the
existence of some reported inland lakes, with the expedition leaving from the
East African territory of Zanzibar. Although the principal objective of the
journey was to investigate and identify these rumoured inland lakes, it was
also suggested that the party might search for the source of the Nile River,
although this was not thought to be a specific aim of the expedition. Burton
was once again joined on the journey by John Hanning Speke, who was said to
have recovered from the wounds he had received during their last expedition
together and who was a more suitable companion for the often irascible Burton,
who some companions, including Speke, found to be extremely difficult to deal
with. For Burton too, Speke might not have been his first choice of
companion, as he was said to be the sort of Englishman that Burton despised,
brash, arrogant and totally indifferent to the beliefs and traditions of the
native peoples, who Speke considered to be inferior to himself. Hiring local
guides and bearers after they had first arrived on the east coast of Africa in
June 1857, initially the expedition was said to have progressed reasonably
well, although as time passed and the journey continued both Burton and Speke
were thought to have suffered fairly serious illnesses and a good deal of their
equipment was thought to have been lost due to the desertion of their local
guides and bearers, or through just plain theft. However, some eight months
after they began their expedition the two explorers were reported to have
finally reached the shores of Lake Tanganyika, where they were able to rest and
try as best as they could, to survey the region, an almost impossible task
given the loss of much of their equipment and continuing instances of illness
that affected both men. Because of their differing states of health, Burton was
unable to continue with the journey, whilst Speke continued to explore on his
own, although his inability to speak any native languages meant that he was
forced to rely on a native translator, which given his own superior and
imperialistic attitudes proved to be extremely difficult for him.
Despite his own continuing health problems and the
difficulties caused by his own personal demeanour, as part of the same
expedition, Speke was reported to have later gone on to locate one of Africa’s
greatest inland waterways, which he named Lake Victoria, but again he was
unable to survey the region properly, because of the lack of adequate
equipment. As they made their way home, the tension between the two men were
reported to have been palpable and having returned safely to the coast, both of
them were said to have returned to England separately, with Speke reaching Britain
first and thus receiving much of the public acclamation that was due to both
men, although personal rivalries quickly ensured that Speke tried to play down
the part that Burton had actually played in the expedition.
 |
| David Livingstone |
In September 1864 Speke was supposed to have
participated in a public debate with Burton, but just before it was due to
begin, he was reported to have jumped up from his chair, declaring that he
could not stand the situation anymore and simply walked out of the hall, much
to everyone’s surprise. Having retired to Neston Park in Wiltshire, later the
same day Speke’s lifeless body was found near a wall on the estate, with a
bullet wound in his chest, which almost immediately led to claims that he had
committed suicide rather than face public scrutiny, not only by Burton, but
also by the wider general public. However, despite such fanciful theories,
ultimately the local Coroner determined that Speke had accidentally shot
himself whilst climbing over the wall, which given his intemperate nature was
probably the most likely explanation of his sudden and completely unexpected
demise.
Although Burton would never undertake another major
exploratory expedition again, during the second half of the 19th
century, he was reported to have begun a diplomatic career that saw him posted
to various destinations, which allowed him to engage in his passion for
exploring and studying the native peoples, traditions and religions of these
faraway lands. Initially posted to Equatorial Guinea, on the west coast of Africa,
as a British Consul in 1861, although his work there was reported to be
relatively unimportant, it allowed him time to continue with his personal
exploration of the west coast of the great continent, journeys that he would
subsequently commit to paper. However, given the rigorous nature of the climate
there, Burton’s wife, Isabel, was not able to accompany him and had to remain
in England, although in 1865 the couple were finally reunited when Burton was
assigned to a new diplomatic post in Brazil, where once again he was given
ample opportunity to pursue his interests in travelling, journeying through the
country’s central highlands and canoeing down many of Brazil’s biggest rivers.
Four years later, he and Isabel were reported to
have moved to Damascus in Syria, where his knowledge of the country’s language,
traditions and religions proved to be a major benefit to the new British Consul
and his wife. Unfortunately, his regular habit of failing to pander to the
interests of certain favoured groups, eventually led to calls for his removal
from Syria, with the authorities back in London arranging for him to be
transferred to Trieste in northeast Italy, where he was once again able to
pursue his interest in travelling and writing. Knighted by Queen Victoria in
1886, much of Burton’s later career was thought to have revolved around his
love of writing, with the explorer penning any number of travel books, poetry,
anthropological studies, some of which were considered pornographic at the
time, as well as a series of books that he had translated from earlier native
manuscripts, dealing with a variety of subjects, from religion to sexual and
social matters. It was said to be while he was working on his final book that
Burton suffered a heart attack and died, on the 20th October 1890,
bringing an end to the life of one of Britain’s most interesting, colourful and
highly divisive characters.
Even though for the most part, early British
explorers and adventurers were almost entirely male, increasingly during the
Victorian period a small number of women began to explore Britain’s vast
imperial territories, bringing their own unique perspective to the subject of
the world’s numerously diverse peoples, cultures, traditions and histories. One
of the most notable of these early female travellers and reporters was said to
be Mary Henrietta Kingsley, who gained considerable recognition for her
journeys in and writing about the African continent and the indigenous peoples
that she encountered there.
 |
| Mary Kingsley |
Travelling next to Nigeria, she was then said to
have made arrangements to move south along the west coast of Africa, eventually
arriving in Angola, where she was reported to have spent some months living
with the local people, who not only taught her some of the skills needed to
survive in the jungles of Africa, but also allowed her to witness the
traditional customs and religious practices that guided their everyday lives,
exactly the sort of things that Mary had come to Africa to learn. As a trained
nurse and with her newly adopted skills, for much of the time she spent in West
Africa, Mary was said to have travelled into various regions of the hinterland,
seemingly unconcerned about the possible dangers that might present themselves,
but confident in her own ability to deal with them, whatever they may be.
However, after spending some months in Africa, in 1894 she was said to have
returned to England, but only with the intention of gaining additional support
for her work, which she was said to have found with the aid of the British
Museum and the publisher George McMillan, who agreed a publishing deal with the
highly unusual young Englishwoman.
Returning to Africa in December 1894, Mary was said
to have revisited Sierra Leone and then Gabon, before becoming aware of the
work of another single white female who was working with the native Efik people
of Calabar in modern day Nigeria, the Scottish missionary Mary Slessor. A
devout Christian missionary, working for the United Presbyterian Church of
Scotland, Slessor was said to have spent much of her time in Africa trying to
suppress the local tribal practice of killing twins at infancy and preventing
incidents of cannibalism amongst some of the native peoples. Believing that
twins were the result of the Devil impregnating a normally pregnant woman with
a second “evil” child, as there was no clear way of identifying which of the
two babies was the Devil’s seed, local tribesmen were thought to have simply killed
both, in order to remove the perceived threat to their village. Slessor was
determined to stop this practice, along with the not so common instances of
local people eating human flesh, a campaign that she was said to have
successfully completed before her untimely death in 1915 and for which work she
was later given a state funeral in Nigeria. Mary Kingsley was said to have
spent some time with Slessor and was thought to have been inspired by the
Scottish missionary, although the two were thought to have disagreed over the
matter of women’s rights and suffrage, which Kingsley considered to be a
distraction from her real goal, of highlighting the positive influences and
practices of the native African tribes.
 |
| Mary Slessor |
Such was the public interest in women like herself
that when Mary returned to England in November 1895, there was an immediate
clamour by newspapers, societies and the public alike to hear her talk about
her adventures in Africa, although the subject of women’s rights also proved to
be a major distraction to her main objectives. Even though she was a single
woman pursuing her own career, in the most unusual circumstances; and despite
having strong views on a number of issues, Mary was not thought to be a
supporter of the Women’s suffrage movement, although it remained a subject that
she preferred not to talk about if given a choice. That was not the case
regarding her own personal attitude towards Britain’s imperialist approach to
the native peoples of its vast overseas possessions, a subject that was said to
have caused a number of newspapers and periodicals to refuse to publish or
indeed promote her work, for fear of undermining the Empire’s purportedly
benign attitude towards its foreign subjects, which many believed to be little
more than a public pretence.
However, despite these occasional attempts at
censoring her work, Kingsley’s stories and reports about the lives of the
native peoples of Africa were said to have been fairly well received by most
people, particularly those groups and societies who shared her concerns about
the pervasive influence of British Christianity and Imperialism on the
indigenous peoples of the Empire. She was said to have made her final journey
to Africa, around the same time as the Second Boer War broke out in 1899 and
immediately travelled to Cape Town in South Africa to offer her services as a
nurse. Posted to Simon’s Town Hospital, which was located at False Bay on the
Cape Peninsula, Mary was reported to have spent some months treating wounded
Boer prisoners of war, before succumbing to the effects of typhoid, a common
disease within most of the hospitals and camps, which finally claimed her life
on 3rd June 1900, with her body later being buried at sea, as she
had previously requested. Even though Mary Kingsley remains relatively unknown
to most modern day Britons, she and her work are still recalled through a
number of associations and groups that were formed as a direct result of her
efforts, including the later Royal African Society formed in 1968, as well as a
medal awarded by the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, which even today
continues to bear her name.
At the same time that Mary Kingsley was exploring
and writing about the peoples and places of West Africa, yet another
Englishwoman, Isabella Bird, was travelling the world, producing travelogues
for a number of newspapers and magazines, which helped describe and explain the
many exotic lands that she visited. Although not a dedicated supporter of the
rights of the world’s indigenous peoples, Isabella might be more properly
described as one of Britain’s first civilian global travellers, a feat in
itself given the available modes of transport at the time and made even more
remarkable by the fact that she was a woman, at a time when women did not
generally travel abroad alone. Unlike her contemporaries, Mary Kingsley and
Mary Lessor, who were thought to have been driven by social conscience and religious
fervour respectively, Isabella Bird was said to have simply wanted to travel,
purely for the purpose of seeing the world and the people and places that it
contained.
 |
| Isabella Bird |
Seemingly unable or unwilling to settle for any
period of time, Isabelle was thought to have turned to writing as a way of
supporting her desire to travel and following the death of her mother in 1868,
the number of excursions and journeys she undertook was said to have increased
significantly. Travelling to Australia in 1872, she quickly moved on to the
islands of Hawaii, which were more commonly known in Europe as the Sandwich
Islands, where she was reported to have climbed Mauna Loa, the largest volcano
on earth, as well as meeting Queen Emma, the consort of the Hawaiian ruler.
Having spent some weeks on the island, Isabella then travelled to the United
States, where she visited the newest of the American states, Colorado, which
was reported to have the ideal climate for those of a frail disposition,
something that she believed herself to be.
Whilst travelling around the wide open countryside,
she was reported to have ridden considerable distances on horseback, adopting
the straddled male riding position, rather than the conventional side-saddle
posture, more usually employed by female riders. It was during her time in
Colorado that Isabella was said to have met and become involved with an outlaw
called Jim Nugent, who was reported to have become equally enamoured by the
rather unconventional Isabelle, although ultimately the relationship ended when
she moved on to San Francisco, whilst Nugent himself was purportedly shot and
killed in the following year. Rather than returning home to England, Isabella
was then said to have left for a trip to the Far East, to visit a number of
Asian countries, including Japan, where she was thought to have visited the
northern region of Hokkaido and stayed with members of the local Ainu tribe.
Later on she was said to have travelled to Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam and
China, although her journey there was thought to have been cut short in 1880
when she had news of her sister’ being seriously ill, which forced her to
return home. Back in Britain and following her sister’s death from Typhoid, she
was said to have married the doctor who had cared for her sister, John Bishop,
who despite offering her a home, security and company, failed to satisfy her
desire to travel, or address many of the psychological and health issues that
regularly affected her. However, within a few years of their marriage, Bishop
was said to have died, leaving her alone once again, but also allowing her the
freedom to resume her travels, although this time with a purpose in mind,
rather than just for pleasure.
Having undertaken some medical training, Isabella
determined to travel to India as a missionary and set out for the subcontinent
by ship, arriving there in February 1889 and was said to have spent the rest of
the year visiting various missions, as well as setting up the Henrietta Bird
Hospital in Amritsar and the John Bishop Hospital in Srinigar. She then
travelled to the neighbouring states of Iran, Kurdistan and Turkey, before
joining up with a Major Herbert Sawyer who was travelling from Baghdad to
Tehran and accompanied him to the Persian capital, although both were said to
be barely alive by the time they reached the city. Having recovered from the
arduous journey, Isabella was thought to have taken her leave of Sawyer and
then spent the next six months travelling the border regions of Iran, Kurdistan
and Turkey at the head of her own camel caravan.
 |
| Mary Livingstone |
Fortunately she was said to have been rescued at
the last minute by a detachment of soldiers who escorted her to safety,
although in another instance, she was said to have been knocked unconscious by
another crowd, but once again managed to survive the assault. Returning to
Britain briefly, in 1901 Isabella was said to have visited Morocco, where she
was said to have travelled with the Berber peoples and was later presented with
a black stallion by the local Sultan, who was said to have held the highly
unusual Englishwoman in very high regard. Returning home to Edinburgh in 1904,
despite being seventy three years of age, Isabella was thought to be already
making plans for yet another journey to China when she was suddenly taken ill
and died on October 7th of the same year; bringing an end to the
life of one of Britain’s most notable and widely travelled Victorian female
explorers.
For the most part though, most Victorian explorers
and adventurers continued to be men, simply because their careers in the
military, merchant marine, commerce and diplomatic services allowed them the
opportunity to travel throughout Britain’s expansive empire, a facility that
was thought to have been denied to most women of the age. It was also thought
to be the case that many of the men who went on to become noted explorers and
adventurers came from a small number of career backgrounds, either religious,
as in the case of men like David Livingstone, or military, as was the case with
the previously mentioned Richard Burton. In a similar vein, other British
military officers and missionaries began to venture out into the hinterlands of
Central Africa and Asia, into regions that had previously remained largely
undiscovered and which were inhabited by any number of previously unknown and
unreported ethnic groups. One such explorer and adventurer was said to be
Francis Younghusband, a British Army Officer, who was born at Murree in modern
day Pakistan in 1863, but sent back to and educated in England, where he later
attended the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, before being commissioned in
the 1st King’s Dragoon Guards, when he was nineteen years of age.
Although his cavalry regiment was said to have seen
active service in South Africa’s First Boer War, it seems likely that
Younghusband would have spent much of his early career stationed on the Indian subcontinent,
carrying out whatever military duties were required of him. However, in 1886,
the young Francis was reported to have been on leave from his regiment when he
undertook his first major expedition, travelling through Manchuria, Mongolia,
across the Gobi Desert and identifying a route from Kashgar in China, through
to India, across the Karakoram Range, via the Mustagh Pass. At the same time he
was said to have discovered the Aghil Mountains, as well as proving that the
Great Karakoram was the water divide between India and Turkestan, achievements
that later earned him membership of the Royal Geographical Society and the
organisations gold medal award. Returning to his regiment with his reputation
much enhanced, two years later Younghusband was reported to have been promoted
to the rank of Captain and in the same year, 1889, was ordered to lead a
detachment of Ghurkha’s to the Kashmiri province of Ladakh, where raiders from
the neighbouring area of Hunza were said to have been disrupting the trade route
between China and India, activities that the young captain and his men
eventually managed to suppress.
 |
| Francis Younghusband |
A gifted artist and writer, Younghusband was
thought to have written expansively about his love of the Kashmir region and in
his book “Kashmir” he was said to have provided many of the publication’s
illustrations, helping to bring the beauty and history of the area to a much
wider public audience. He was also said to have been an active participant in “The
Great Game”, becoming involved in the political and military “hide and seek”,
which was carried out by both Russia and Britain in the mountainous border
regions of India and Afghanistan, as both powers battled for influence over the
native states of the area.
Whilst he was on leave in 1895 Younghusband was
said to have acted as a correspondent for the London Times, covering the relief
of the isolated British outpost at Chitral, where he himself had once been
stationed and met the future British Viceroy of India, George Curzon, who was
thought to have been travelling in the region. It was said to be through his
friendship with Curzon that Younghusband found himself appointed as the British
Commissioner for Tibet, a post he was thought to have held from 1902 until
1904; and during which he was said to have been involved in the military
invasion of Tibet, along with the associated massacre of Tibetan monks.
According to some reports, in 1903, the British Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon,
was said to have authorised a military invasion of Tibet, ostensibly to settle
a border dispute between Tibet and the neighbouring Indian state of Sikkim,
although in reality, the operation was designed to allow Britain complete
control of the country of Tibet itself. British forces having crossed the
Tibetan forces and advanced deep into the country were then said to have been
confronted by a Tibetan militia force comprised mainly of monks, who were
subsequently attacked by the combined British-Bhutanese forces, leaving a large
number of the Tibetan militia either dead or wounded. Even though Younghusband
was later awarded a number of honours for all of his many positive achievements
in India, the infamous massacre at Guru was thought to have remained a stain on
his character, as people on both sides of the argument continued to differ as
to the actual cause of the incident; and more importantly, about the numbers of
Tibetans who actually died there.
However, regardless of that particular issue, for
the remainder of his career in India he was reported to have played much more
of a political role, although he was said to have still found time to survey
the Brahmaputra, Indus and Sutlej Rivers, as well as making three separate
attempts to climb the largest of the Himalayan peaks, Mount Everest. He was
eventually appointed as the British representative in Kashmir, a post he was
thought to have held for four years before returning home to England, where he
later became the president of the Royal Geographical Society, involving himself
in several attempts to conquer Mount Everest, something that was never achieved
in his own lifetime.
According to some later historians, Younghusband
was typical of his generation, in that he was a dutiful and courageous
individual, who actively sought out adventure, taking great pleasure in
exploring and visiting places that no European had ever visited before; and
reporting them in both pictures and words. However, in other ways he was
completely untypical of many of his contemporaries, in that he was said to have
been deeply sympathetic to the needs, traditions and spiritual beliefs of the
native peoples of the subcontinent, views not shared by many Europeans at that
time. He was also reported to have accepted the need for self government in
India and was no doubt gratified to witness the emergence of India’s own
fledgling democratic parties, even though he would never see the country
achieve its formal independence in 1947. Whilst speaking to a meeting of the
World Congress of Faiths in Birmingham, in July 1942, Younghusband was reported
to have suffered a stroke, which did not immediately prove to be fatal,
although having been released into the care of his long time lover, he then
suffered a major heart attack on the 31st July 1942, which ultimately
ended his life, at the age of seventy nine.
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