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
Sir Ernest Shackleton
Born Kilkee, county Clare, Ireland. He led several Antarctic expeditions and located the South magnetic pole during his voyage of 1907-1909. Died of a heart attach on a voyage to the South Atlantic...
3 memorials
John McDouall Stuart
Australian explorer. Born Scotland. Trained as a civil engineer and aged 23 emigrated to Australia where 1858 - 62 he made 6 expeditions into the interior searching out new pastures and surveying ...
1 memorial
1 memorial
Thomas Johnson
Role on the lost expedition: Petty officer on SS Terror. See John Franklin.
1 memorial
Frederick Hornby
Role on the lost expedition: Officer on SS Terror. See John Franklin.
1 memorial
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