7
Royal Geographical Society Speaker Alasdair Macleod 15-Jul-2010
F T
George Mallory A T
fter the brief history of the RGS Alasdair , being
somewhat constrained by our timing for lunchtime speakers, went on to summarize a few of the most famous of the many geographical explora- tions that were sponsored by the Society.
he story of Livingstone the missionary and
explorer is so well known it hardly needs a write up but I am sure that not many of us were aware that it was a newspaper which sent Stanley to the continent of Africa when the disappearance of the great explorer was reported. His instructions were simple, „Find him‟, which he did in 1871 when he was supposed to have uttered the immortal words “ Dr. Livingstone I presume?”. This quote was famously reported in 1872 and in May 1873 Livingstone died of malaria.
ollowing on from this encounter, Stanley „got
the bug‟ and continued to ex- plore Africa himself.
he next adventure that Alasdair spoke of was the
great Antarctic Expedition of 1901 to 1904 when Scott, Shackleton and Wilson began their exploration of that great wilderness. Shackleton became the editor of The South Polar Times. He is probably most famously as- sociated with the story of his ship The Endurance which became trapped for months in an ice flow and was crushed by the ice, finally sinking in 1915.
T
he most famous story of the Antarctic exploration
years is of course that rivalry between Scott and Amundson and their race to become the first to reach the South Pole .As we all know they both achieved their goal only for Scott to discover that his rival had got there first. It was the ill-fated return, when all members of the expedition perished, that sealed the already famous explorer‟s iconic status.
A
lasdair finished his talk by explaining how the
Society was behind the several attempts to climb Mount Everest. The first story related to the ill-fated attempt by Mallory and Irvine in 1924 and the subsequent discovery of Mallory‟s body in 1998.
Although this incredible find threw up some important clues as to the possible success of the attempt , the question still remains ,did they or did they not reach the summit? Finally he spoke briefly of the first acknowledged conquest of the mountain by Sir Edmund Hillery and Sherpa Tensing in 1953, a feat that is so famously linked with the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth II
T
he final important fact he imparted is that the Royal
Geographical Society is still supporting and funding expeditions as well as geography in schools. It does so without government funding and it receives the much needed money through it‟s members, corporate funding and donations from charitable organisations such as Rotary and the general public.
A
fter the vote of thanks the club members
showed their appreciation in time honoured manner.
(Ed‟s comments. Apologies for any errors in this article. As a geographer
I was extremely interested in the talk and as a result my notes were fairly sparse. In writing this piece I did research some of the facts from the RGS web site and I „googled‟ some of the famous characters mentioned. In doing so I discovered quite a lot more information about both the society and these famous people. If this article so inspires you I recommend a bit of „googling‟.)
7
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70