John Hanning Speke

Born in 1827, he was a British army officer and explorer who became closely associated with the Royal Geographical Society's efforts to map East Africa. He first traveled inland with Richard Francis Burton, and on a later expedition with James Augustus Grant he pushed farther through the region while investigating the great lakes of East Africa.

He is remembered above all for arguing that Lake Victoria was the principal source of the Nile. That claim brought him wide attention and also sharp disagreement, especially from Burton, helping turn his expeditions into both a geographical milestone and a public controversy.

Speke died in 1864, only a few years after his most famous journey, leaving behind travel writing that captures the ambition, danger, and confidence of Victorian exploration. Today he remains an important, if debated, figure in the history of African exploration and geographic discovery.