John Hanning Speke

On 15 September 1864 John Hanning Speke went for an afternoon’s shooting at Neston Park in Wiltshire. There he died from a self-inflicted gunshot. It remains uncertain whether it was an accident or suicide. He was buried in Dowlish Wake, Somerset, the ancestral home of the Speke family.

Not much is known about John Hanning Speke’s early life except for the fact that he was born on 4 May 1827 at Orleigh Court, Buckland Brewer near Bideford, North Devon.

John Hanning Speke was commissioned into the British army in 1844 and posted to India. There he served in the First Anglo-Sikh War in Punjab under Sir Colin Campbell. He was an adventurous young man who explored the Himalayan Mountains during his leaves. He also travelled to Tibet once.

In 1854, Speke obtained overseas leave and made his first voyage to Africa. He wanted to cross the Gulf of Aden and collect specimens in Somaliland for his family's natural history museum in Somerset. However, he was denied permission for this journey as Somaliland was considered rather dangerous.

Speke then joined Richard Burton, a famous explorer, on his expedition to Somalia. Burton was already accompanied by Lt William Stroyan and Lt. Herne, and Speke joined the group. The party faced a brutal attack by the Somalis in April 1855 in which Speke was severely wounded though he eventually managed to escape.

Back to his duties, he served as a captain in a Turkish regiment at Kertch during the Crimean War (1855–1856). In late 1856, Speke was invited by Burton to join him on an expedition to search for the origin of the river Nile.

Speke and Burton traveled to east Africa to find the Great Lakes and locate the much sought-after source of the Nile. They started from Zanzibar Island in June 1857 and explored the east African coast for six months, attempting to find the best route inland. They reached the Lake Tanganyika in February 1858.

John Hanning Speke was the first European to reach Lake Victoria in east Africa which he named in the honor of Queen Victoria. He also identified the lake as the source of river Nile. His finding, though greatly debated upon during his lifetime, was proven to be correct years after his death.