U.K. Explorers' Treasures Finally Come Out of Hiding

James Owen in England
for National Geographic News

June 10, 2004

An extraordinary collection of treasures charting 500 years of British
exploration around the globe opened to the public this week. It belongs
to the Royal Geographical Society, the London-based scientific
institution whose members have explored and mapped the biggest empire
in history.

The archive represents one of world's biggest collections of geographical knowledge. It includes the hats doffed by Stanley and Livingstone during their famous "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" encounter in Africa, photographs of Ernest Shackleton's epic expedition to Antarctica, and maps used for the D-Day landings during World War II.

Public access to these and countless other historic items was made possible through a project—valued at U.S. $13.1 million dollars—that funded construction of a new exhibition area, a reading room, and storage facilities at the society's headquarters in Kensington, London.

Rita Gardner, director of the Royal Geographical Society, said: "We had two million maps, manuscripts, photographs, and other artifacts squirreled away in the dark in more than 40 rooms on five different floors and kept in a Dickensian condition. So we thought, what shall we do with what's one of the greatest collections in the world?"

With the help of the U.K.'s Heritage Lottery Fund, the society decided to open up its archive for the first time in its 174-year history. (The fund raises money for public causes through a national lottery held twice each week.)

"We are not just making the archive physically accessible but aiding intellectual access to what we hold," Gardner said.

Schoolchildren doing geography homework, for example, can now access an online catalog.

Scientists, meanwhile, can study polar maps dating back to the mid-1800s that "show polar ice shelves as they were 150 years ago," said Steve Brace, the Society's head of collections. Brace notes that the maps "can help researchers in tracking glacial melting due to climate change."

Brace says that Antarctic researchers are intrigued by the dairies and scientific writings of Captain Robert Scott. The explorer froze to death soon after reaching the South Pole in 1912. His writings suggest to modern-day scientists that blue whales were once far more widespread in Antarctic waters than previously thought.

The archive contains photographer Herbert Pontin's poignant record of Scott's final, ill-fated expedition. It also holds dramatic glass-plate images of Shackleton's trip to Antarctica two years later, when his ship, Endurance, was crushed by ice. Shackleton and his team managed to survive subzero polar conditions for a year and a half before being rescued.

A New Era

The opening of the Royal Geographical Society's archive, revealing its wealth of historical and geographical material, marks a new era for what was traditionally a secretive and elitist institution.

Besides groundbreaking scientific work by members like evolutionist Charles Darwin, the society's intrepid explorers paved the way for imperial conquest. They often embodied 19th-century Britain's supreme self-confidence and sense of superiority.

A map of the Amazon from the 1850s, for example, charts Clements Markham's quest for the cinchona tree, from which quinine, an early treatment for malaria, could be extracted. The map also includes brief written asides on various Amazonian tribes encountered along the way.

While most tribespeople are referred to only as "cannibals," one Indian group of Brazil is described as "quiet and inoffensive, very short." Bizarrely, another tribe is noted as having "tails eight inches [20 centimeters] long." The Cocamillas Indians of Peru were listed as "lazy and drunken, good boatmen."

"It's a fascinating record of how the British regarded native peoples of the day," Brace said.

Other Royal Geographical Society members from the grand age of imperial discovery included John Speke, credited with finding the source of the Nile; Richard Burton, the first Christian to enter Mecca; and the explorer and missionary David Livingstone.

Livingstone's Cap

Livingstone's battered cap is in the collection, as is the pith helmet worn by the American journalist-explorer Henry Stanley when, famously, he tracked down Livingstone in East Africa in 1872.

The archive also contains slave shackles of the type Livingstone brought back from Tanzania. "He came across a slave-raiding party and used the shackles back in Britain to denounce slavery," Brace said.

Among more recent items in the collection are maps drawn up by Royal Geographical Society cartographers for the D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied France 60 years ago this month.

There's also an unusual collection of images of the Normandy coast used for planning the D-Day landings. The photographs weren't taken by soldiers, spies, or military aircraft but by seaside vacationers before the war.

The holiday snaps—of families picnicking on beaches and paddling in the sea—were sent to naval intelligence after a national appeal on British radio in 1943. The request was vague about the locations intelligence was interested in, because the Germans monitored U.K. radio broadcasts.

Brace says the snapshots provided vital information for the amphibious beach assault that could not have been gleaned from aerial reconnaissance: for instance, the height of sand dunes, how deep the water was, and whether the beaches would be suitable for tanks.

Referring to this and the rest of the newly opened collection, society director Rita Gardner, added, "They tell so many stories for so many people and are a history of geography that document a changing world."

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