biography
| name: |
Speke, John Hanning
|
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1827–64)
|
| biography:
| Explorer, born in Bideford, Devon, SW England, UK. He served in India, and in 1856 went with Burton to search for the equatorial lakes of Africa. They discovered L Tanganyika (1858), then Speke travelled on alone, finding the lake he named Victoria, and saw in it the headwaters of the Nile. Back in England, his claims to have discovered the source of the Nile were doubted, and so a second expedition set out (1860–3). On his return, his claims were again challenged, and he was about to defend his discovery when he was killed in a shooting accident. |
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