Explorer. Born Devon. The first European, while on an expedition with Richard Burton to East Africa in 1858, to discover Lake Victoria. On a subsequent journey with James Grant in 1862, he confirmed its northern outlet as the source of the Nile. Burton queried whether Speke really had found the source of the Nile and the two fell out. Murchison arranged a debate between them. Two days before this debate Speke left a lunch where Burton was present, to go on a partridge shoot. Climbing over a wall he shot himself. Suicide was suspected but never proved. Since his death there have been suggestions that he was a repressed homosexual, although he is known to have fathered a child in Buganda, and even that he and Burton had had an intimate relationship.
Other Subjects
William Smith
Role on the lost expedition: Petty officer on SS Erebus. See John Franklin.
David Livingstone
Explorer, missionary, writer and medic. Born at Blantyre, just south of Glasgow. Qualified as a doctor in order to go as a medical missionary to China. Got the source of the Nile wrong and failed t...
Person, Exploring, Religion, Seriously Famous, Africa, Scotland
John Ratcliffe
Mariner and colonist. His family name appears to have originally been Sicklemore, and why he chose to call himself Ratcliffe remains a riddle. He was captain of the 'Discovery', one of three ships ...
Bartolomeu Dias
Portuguese nobleman who sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, the southern tip of Africa, in 1488, the first European known to do so since ancient times.
New Zealand Company
Formed to establish British settlements in New Zealand. 5 May 1839 despatched the survey ship Tory to begin the colonisation of New Zealand on the Wakefield Plan.