Devon's Great Explorers

Above: Cllr Tom Wright, Mayor Budleigh Salterton, congratulates 'Sir Walter Raleigh' and the Fairlynch Fancies on winning 1st prize in their category

As you know Budleigh Carnival is happening on the evening of Saturday 28 September. Fairlynch Museum’s costumed group The Fairlynch Fancies, flushed with their success in winning 1^st prize among the walking groups in the 2018 Carnival, is entering again with the title ‘Devon Explorers’.

Now that ties in nicely with the Museum’s current exhibition, called ‘Devon’s New World Explorers’. In case you haven’t seen it, the displays focus on people like Sir Walter Raleigh, his half-brother Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Francis Drake. The Golden Age of Queen Elizabeth I was a celebrated period for exploration.

View towards Sharpitor & Leather Tor down the valley of the river Meavy.  Photo credit: Herby

Of course Devon has been the home of many other explorers from other, more recent times. The long coastline and the wild parts of Dartmoor are just two possible reasons for that. Some of the explorers have been the subject of Fairlynch Museum exhibitions because they lived in the Budleigh area.

Think of the naval officer, zoologist and founder of the British Schools Exploring Society George Murray Levick who was the doctor and zoologist on Captain Scott’s ill-fated Antarctic expedition.  His wife Audrey accompanied him on explorations with teams of young people to places like Newfoundland. The picture is of a corner of Fairlynch’s 2011-12 exhibition showing the kind of kit worn by Levick and his fellow explorers in the Antarctic, including his actual skis.

Then there was the great Victorian Budleigh-born scientist Henry Carter FRS, explorer of Arabia and expert on marine sponges. I was so impressed by his kind face and his achievements that I wrote this biography of him!

Another name associated with Fairlynch is George Carter – no relation – amateur archaeologist, pebble expert and explorer of India and Woodbury Common.  Seen here is a photo of him wearing plus fours next to one of the radioactive pebbles from Littleham cliffs, on display at Fairlynch Museum.

A fourth Budleigh resident was Admiral George William Preedy CB, the Victorian naval officer who explored the Atlantic sea-bed during the laying of the first telegraph cable from Ireland to America.  He is pictured here – standing fourth from the left with no cap – with his crew from HMS Agamemnon.  If you visit All Saints Church in East Budleigh you can admire the fine stained glass window set up in his honour. 

Further away from Budleigh one of the best known names among Devon-linked explorers is Captain Scott himself, born in Plymouth in 1868.

Born in Torquay in 1867, Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett DSO explored the Amazon.  He was the star of the 2017 Hollywood adventure film, The Lost City of Z, starring Sienna Miller and Charlie Hunnam. The film told the story of Fawcett’s search for this fabled lost city reputedly built by an ancient civilisation, believed to have been located deep in the Amazon jungle in the Matto Grosso region of Brazil. After a series of expeditions in Brazil, Fawcett disappeared with his son Jack and Raleigh Rimmel in 1925. 

Fawcett has his critics.  Explorer John Hemming described him as a racist, a ‘nutter’, and a dangerous incompetent who ‘never discovered anything’, but caused the loss of many lives.

Portrait of William J Wills by Thomas Adams Hill 

State Library of New South Wales 

I had never heard of William John Wills, famed for being part of the first expedition to cross Australia from south to north, finding a route across the continent from the settled areas of Victoria to the Gulf of Carpentaria. 

Born in Totnes in 1834, he became a surveyor and also trained as a surgeon.  Sadly he and his fellow-explorer Robert O’Hara Burke died in 1861 at the end of the journey but their achievement was recognized when they received a State Funeral and were buried in Melbourne General Cemetery.

Nor had I heard of John Hanning Speke, pictured above,  an officer in the British Indian Army who made three exploratory expeditions to Africa. Born near Bideford in 1827 he is most associated with the search for the source of the Nile and was the first European to reach Lake Victoria.  After a life of adventures which make me feel like a complete vegetable he died, ironically from a self-inflicted gunshot in 1864 during a shooting party in Wiltshire.

Even more extreme and even eccentric as an adventurer and explorer was Richard Burton - or to give him his full title Sir Richard Francis Burton KCMG FRGS. Definitely not the actor. Born in Torquay in 1821 he collaborated with Speke on one expedition in Africa. 

Described as a   geographer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, cartographer, ethnologist, spy, linguist, poet, fencer, and diplomat, he  was famed for his travels and explorations in Asia, Africa and the Americas, as well as his extraordinary knowledge of languages and cultures. According to one count, he spoke 29 European, Asian and African languages. 

The above photo shows him as ‘The Pilgrim’, disguised as ‘Haji Abdullah’,  an illustration dated 1853 from his personal narrative. A great costume for the Budleigh Carnival! 

Another great Victorian explorer was Sir Samuel White Baker, who discovered one of the sources of the Nile. Born in London in 1821, his connection with Devon is that he purchased the estate of Sandford Orleigh, near Newton Abbot and died there in 1893.  

Among other things he is noted for having his second wife, Florence, accompany him on his trips – he called her ‘his good little officer.’ 

You can read more about him on the Newton Abbot Museum website at https://www.museum-newtonabbot.org.uk/sir-samuel-white-baker  where he is counted as a Notable Newtonian.  The above image of the couple is from the website. 

And other women explorers? One of the best known is Dame Freya Stark DBE, whose childhood was spent in Devon and Italy.   She wrote more than two dozen books on her travels in the Middle East and Afghanistan as well as several autobiographical works and essays. She was one of the first non-Arabs to travel through the southern Arabian Desert. She was known for her flamboyant clothes and headgear. Dame Freya died in 1993 at the ripe old age of 101. 

And how about Mary and Jane Parminter, the cousins who built A La Ronde, pictured above, near Exmouth. Before settling down and furnishing their amazing 16-sided house overlooking the River Exe they embarked on the 18^th century Grand Tour with Jane’s sister Elizabeth Parminter.  Their Tour included a trip in the Alps, where in 1786 they were recorded as the first women to climb a peak over 3,000m. Mont Buet is known as Le Mont Blanc des Dames in their honour.

I should of course mention Ginny Fiennes, aka Virginia Frances, Lady Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes, wife of

Sir Ranulph Fiennes, and an explorer in her own right. She was the first woman to be awarded the Polar Medal.

I'm sure there are other women explorers with links to Devon. I’m investigating. Maybe you can help.

And would you like to help make Budleigh Carnival a success and join our Fairlynch Fancies on the evening of 28 September by dressing as one of the Devon explorers mentioned above?

Sir Walter Raleigh’s role has already been taken of course. But there are plenty of others which may be available.

We may be able to provide props and bits of costume. Here’s a list of those explorers and their possible kit:

Henry Carter (explorer of Arabia + marine sponge expert and subject of Fairlynch 2013 exhibition)  – He gathered his sponge specimens on Budleigh beach, equipped with waders, crowbar, magnifying glass and other tools.

George Carter – bags of pebbles, plus fours, pith helmet.

Murray Levick (zoologist, naval officer and surgeon on Captain Scott’s last Antarctic expedition) – Antarctic suit

Audrey Levick - ??? (I have photos)

Admiral Preedy (explorer of the Atlantic to lay cable, subject of Fairlynch 2017 exhibition) – naval uniform

Devon links, but not Budleigh:

The Parminters (Alpine explorers and linked to A La Ronde) – 18^th century long dresses, easel, bags of feathers?

Freya Stark (explorer of Arabia, childhood spent in Devon and Italy) – Arab keffiyeh headdress

Ginny Fiennes  d.2004

Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett Amazon explorer, born in Torquay – 1920s suit & boater or as in  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Fawcett#/media/File:PercyFawcett.jpg

Email me, Michael, if you would like to know more.

 E: mr.downes@gmail.com 

You can access other posts on this blog by going to the Blog Archive (under the ‘About Me’ section), and clicking on the appropriate heading.