Who named lake victoria
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John Hanning Speke (1827 - 1864)
John Hanning Speke ©>Speke was an English explorer and the first European to reach Lake Victoria in east Africa, which he correctly identified as the long-sought source of the Nile.
John Hanning Speke was born on 4 May 1827 in Bideford in Devon. He was commissioned into the British army in 1844 and posted to India where he served in the Punjab and travelled in the Himalayas and Tibet. In April 1855, as part of Richard Burton's expedition to explore Somaliland, Speke was severely wounded in an attack by the Somalis. Invalided home, he volunteered for the Crimea and served during the war with a regiment of Turks.
In December 1856, Speke accepted an invitation from Burton to join an expedition to search for the reported great lakes in east central Africa and, particularly, to try and find Lake Nyassa, said to be the origin of the Nile. They left Zanzibar in June 1857 and, after exploring the East African coast for six months to find the best route inland, became the first Europeans to reach Lake Tanganyika in February 1858. During the re
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John Hanning Speke - English Soldier and Explorer (1827-1864)
By Raymond John Howgego
Born in Devon, Speke was one of seven children of William Speke, a retired army captain and a tenant at Orleigh Court, near Bideford, and Georgina Elizabeth (née Hanning) who came from a wealthy mercantile family. (Note: Speke's birthplave has been variously given as Orleigh Court; Jordans, the family seat near Ilminster; or Bamford Speke, near Bampton in Devon.) He was educated at Barnstaple Grammar School and at a college in Blackheath, London, but from an early age suffered bouts of ophthalmia which made reading difficult and discouraged learning. Through his mother's acquaintanceship with the Duke of Wellington, he obtained a commission in the army of the East India Company, and in 1844 sailed for India to join the 46th Regiment of the Bengal Native Infantry. Speke served with distinction in the Punjab War under General Sir Colin Campbell, and in the second Sikh War under Lord Gough when he fought in the Multani campaign of 1849. It was during these actions that he formed a lifelong friend
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Somerset has produced few people who have changed the way we see and understand the world. Among them was the explorer John Hanning Speke (1827-1864), the man who discovered the source of the world’s longest river, the Nile.
John Hanning Speke pictured at the outflow of the River Nile
A Taste for Exploration
Speke came from an old Somerset family long associated with Whitelackington near Ilminster. As a child he was a reluctant scholar but a keen natural historian, and when he became a young army officer in India he soon developed a taste for exploration.
In 1855 he met the seasoned explorer and orientalist Richard Burton, and despite strong temperamental differences they decided to travel together in Africa. In 1856 they began a long and arduous journey into east central Africa, hoping that the Nile’s source might be among their discoveries.
John Hanning Speke
The Source of the Nile
In 1858 they became the first Europeans to reach Lake Tanganyika, and on the return journey to the east African coast, while Burton was laid up with illness, Speke discovered a vast lake wh
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