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Royal Geographical Society Speaker Alasdair Macleod 15-Jul-2010
Alasdair Macleod O T
n Thursday 15th. July we were treated yet again to
one of Ron Geggus‟ extra special guest speakers, Alasdair Macleod, from the Royal Geographical Society.
he Geographical Society of London was founded in
1830 under the name Geographical Society of London as an institution to promote the 'advancement of geographical science'. Like many learned societies, it had started as a dining club in London, where select members held informal dinner debates on current scientific issues and ideas.
F F
ounding members of the Society included Sir John
Barrow, Sir John Franklin and Francis Beaufort. Under the patronage of King William IV it later became known as The Royal Geographical Society and was granted its Royal Charter under Queen Victoria in 1859.
rom 1830 - 1840 the RGS met in the rooms of the
Horticultural Society in Regent Street, London and from 1854 - 1870 at 15 Whitehall Place, London. In 1870, the Society finally found a home when it moved to 1 Saville Row, London – an address that quickly became associated with adventure and travel. (This is now the premises of Gieves and Hawkes the Tailors)
A
new impetus was given to the Society‟s affairs in
1911, with the election of Earl Curzon, the former Viceroy of India, as the Society‟s President (1911-1914). The premises in Saville Row were sold and the present site, Lowther Lodge in Kensington Gore, was purchased and opened for use in April 1913. In the same year the Society‟s ban on women was lifted.
T
he history of the Society was closely allied for
many of its earlier years with „colonial‟ exploration in Africa, the Indian subcontinent, the polar regions, and central Asia especially. It has been a key associate and supporter of many notable explorers and expeditions, including those of Darwin, Livingstone, Stanley, Scott, Shackleton, Hunt and Hillary. From the middle of the 19th century until the end of World War I, expeditions sponsored by the Royal Geographical Society were frequently front page news, and the opinions of its President and Council would be avidly sought by journalists and editors
Ernest Shackleton David Livingstone
Robert Falcon Scott 6
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