EXPLORATION

The British Interplanetary Society

The British Interplanetary Society seeks to promote space exploration. The organisation was founded in 1933 by P.E. Cleator.

In 1936 the Society learned that the Explosives Act of 1875 barred private testing of liquid-fuel rockets.

In 1945 Arthur C. Clarke suggested the communications in a memorandum that was circulated to members of the society

Location: 27-29 South Lambeth Road, SW8 1SZ

Website: www.bis-space.com

The Centre of London

Were you to ask someone where the centre of London is, the person would probably hesitate before giving you an answer. The response when it came would probably be Trafalgar Square . The reason for the vacillation is that the City of London is decidedly older than the West End and that within the West End there are many sections that are older than Trafalgar Square, which is itself on the periphery of the West End. If the Square has a claim to being the centre of London it is one that it has purloined from its neighbour Charing Cross. This is the point from which mileage is measured from London to elsewhere in the country. Why this is so is uncertain. It has been claimed that the practice derived from the site being the mid-point between the royal court at Westminster and the western edge of the City.

Location: Charing Cross, WC2N 5DX. The traffic island that stands between the square and the northern end of Whitehall. (purple, orange)

Thomas Coryate

Thomas Coryate was born the son of clergyman and studied Classics at the University of Oxford. He had a talent for ingratiating himself with others and entertaining them. Probably through gentry connections in his native Somerset, he succeeded in making himself an ex officio member of Henry Prince of Wales s household. During the summer of 1608 Coryate travelled extensively through Europe. Much of this journey was executed by shanks's pony, which led to his being dubbed the Odcombian Legstretcher.¹ He published an account of these travels under the title Coryats Crudities (1611). The book's purpose was to try to encourage wealthy young men to broaden their minds through travel. It included the first account in English of the tale of William Tell.

In 1612 Coryate left England for good. He sailed to Constantinople. Once there he learned both Italian and Turkish. At the time, the former language was the principal lingua franca of the Levant. With these linguistic resources at his disposal, he made a journey to Jerusalem. Over the winter of 1614-5 he resided in Aleppo. From the city, caravans made their way to India. He decided to join one and walked all the way to the sub-continent. In less than a year he had covered over 3000 miles to arrive at Agra, the capital of the Mughal Empire. He proved to be able to commend himself to merchants who were members of the East India Company. They furnished him with the opportunity to learn Arabic, Hindustani, and Persian. He then recommenced his travelling. He died in Surat.

Location: Bow Lane, EC4M 9AL. Coryate resided locally. (blue, yellow)

See Also: SMALL ITEMS Cutlery, Fork

¹. Coryate was a native of Odcombe in Somerset.

Outdoors Gear Shops

In 2010 Southampton Street in Covent Garden was home to a cluster of outdoors gear shops. There were others nearby in Henrietta Street and in Mercer Street. There was also a grouping on the northern side of Kensington High Street to the east of Phillimore Gardens.

Location: Southampton Street, WC2E 7PP (purple, brown)

Kensington High Street, W8 7RG (orange, brown)

See Also: STREETS, SPECIALISED

The Royal Geographic Society

The Royal Geographical Society was founded in 1830. There is a story that Sir Richard Burton and David Livingstone were once both late for a meeting at the R.G.S. because they could not find its building. The organisation's current home, Lowther Lodge (1874), was designed by Norman Shaw for the Hon. William Lowther. The Society moved into it in 1912.

In 1892 the Royal Geographical Society started to admit women to its membership.

Location: 1 Kensington Gore, SW7 2AR (red, turquoise)

Website: www.rgs.org

Isabella Bird

Isabella Bird's (1831-1904) book about the Sandwich Islands was to prove to be her work that sold the most copies. When the King of Hawaii visited Britain, he made a trip to Edinburgh to present her with a Hawaiian literary award.

A review in The Times newspaper of her Rockies book cast an aspersion of masculinity with regard to her horse riding. This upset her intensely. Having neither a father nor a brother, she asked her publisher John Murray to horsewhip the reviewer. An image of her riding gear was placed at the front of subsequent editions of the book. It became a popular image. It was used by the suffragettes to express gender equality.

Bird became an ardent photographer. These were used to illustrate her books with.

The issue of whether or not Bird should be elected a member of the Royal Geographical Society prompted a considerable debate within the organisation. Punch published about the matter. The distinction was conferred upon. She was the first woman to receive it. However, subsequently the Society's rules were amended so that no further lady fellows should be admitted. None were for over twenty years.

Colonel Percy Fawcett

Starting in 1906 Lieutenant-Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett conducted seven exploratory expeditions in South America. He was friendly with the writer Conan Doyle, whose novels included The Lost World (1912). By 1914 he believed that there was a great hidden civilisation in Brazil's Mato Grosso region.

In 1920 Fawcett made an amateurish expedition into the jungle. He re-emerged without having achieved anything.

In 1925 the lieutenant-colonel made his eighth expedition. This was financed by a group that was known as the Glove. In 1927 the Royal Geographical Society concluded that he was dead.

Fawcett may have been a model for the movie character Indiana Jones.

In 2010 it was reported that over 200 earthworks had been identified close to Brazil s border with Bolivia. They were taken to be archaeological evidence of a sophisticated civilisation. This had existed from 200 A.D. until the end of the 13^thC.

Scott of The Antarctic

Coal

On 8 February 1912 the Scott exploration spent a day geologising near Mount Buckley. Edward Wilson took some coal fossils to be beech. Scott stated that should take them with them. They gathered 35lb. of fossils. They kept these with them until they died even though they jettisoned other items in order to have less weight to transport.

In 1918 A.C. Seward of Cambridge stated that the examples of glysopteras Indica proved that Antarctica had been part of Gondwana. They had been found in India as well.

In 1904 Scott had met Marie Stopes, when she had been working as a palaeobotany demonstrator at the University of Manchester. She asked to go on his next expedition. He declined but stated that he would look for the plant fossils that she believed were there. He visited the university to familiarise himself with a number of fossil types.

Stopes created a system for classifying coal. During the First World War her expertise to led her working for the government.

See Also: COAL

Ernest Shackleton

At the end of the 20^thC Scott's fellow Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton enjoyed a period of fashionability with management educators in the United States. The reason for this was that he - unlike Scott - succeeded in having the skills to derive a measure of success in a series of situations that could have killed him and the members of his party.

In 1914 the explorer arrived in Antarctica, on board the Endeavour, with the intention of making a trans-continental journey. However, he found that he was unable to land from the Weddell Sea. The Endeavour became trapped by ice that was to eventually crush it. This meant that Shackleton needed to try to preserve the lives of the ship's crew. The party had been able to salvage three small boats. They used these to transfer themselves to an ice floe. This was travelling northwards and so furnished them with a limited amount of time on it before it would break up. They succeeded in making landfall on Elephant Island. Shackleton and five of his men then sailed 800 miles across the Southern Ocean from the island to South Georgia in a 22-ft.-long boat. Having landed, the group made its way across the unclimbed and unsurveyed Allardyce Range before finally reaching a remote whaling station. A rescue party was then dispatched to retrieve the rest of the crew.

Location: 12 Westwood Hill, Sydenham, SE26 6QR

Timbuktu

The explorers Richard Jobson and Daniel Howton tried to find Timbuktu. Mungo Park disappeared while trying to do the same.

In 1826 Major Gordon Lang reached the city but was killed. Two years later R n Cahailler managed to return.

David Backhouse 2024