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
Robert Hunt
Vicar. Born circa 1568. He was chaplain to the Jamestown Settlement.
1 memorial
Captain John Smith
Citizen and cordwainer (cobbler), first among the leaders of the settlement at Jamestown, Virginia from which began the overseas expansion of the English speaking peoples. Born Lancashire. 16 year...
2 memorials
Canterbury Association
Formed to establish a colony in what is now the Canterbury region of New Zealand.
1 memorial
Captain Matthew Flinders
Explorer and navigator of the Australian seas. Born in Donington, Lincolnshire. Invented the Flinders Bar, a device for counteracting the vertical component of a ship's magnetic field, and gave Aus...
2 memorials
Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in to see them