Clements Robert Markham

Background

Clements Robert Markham was born on July 20, 1830, in Stillingfleet, York, United Kingdom to the family of Reverend David Frederick Markham and the former Catherine Milner, the daughter of Sir William Milner, 4th Baronet, of Nun Appleton Hall, Yorkshire. Markham was the second son to the family. The family were descendants of William Markham, former Archbishop of York and royal tutor; this Court connection led to David Markham's appointment, in 1827, as an honorary canon of Windsor.

Education

Markham attended Westminster School for two years before joining the Royal Navy as a cadet in 1844. By the time he left the service in December 1851, he had acquired various technical, nautical, and geographical skills, which were the extent of his formal education.

Career

Markham entered the Royal Navy in 1844 as an officer cadet. He was posted to the Pacific station, where he spent three years. In 1845 he made his first visit to Peru, landing at Callao, and while in the region he learned Spanish. Following his service in the Pacific, Markham participated in the expedition mounted to look for Sir John Franklin, the Arctic explorer, and so gained firsthand knowledge of the difficulty of movement in the Polar regions. On returning from the Arctic, Markham stopped in Boston, where he met William Prescott, author of History of the Conquest of Mexico (1843) and History of the Conquest of Peru (1847), enormously popular books that Markham had already read and admired and that probably greatly influenced his thoughts about a future career. In 1851, after just seven years, Markham left the navy against the desires of his family but with hopes of becoming an explorer and writer.

After a year in Peru (1852-1853) studying Inca ruins, Markham spent most of the next two decades in the service of the India Office. In 1860 Markham planned and executed a project for the acclimatization of Peruvian cinchona in India, an enterprise which had immense significance for public health and for the Indian economy. During this period he wrote extensively on topics in geography, economic botany, and technology related to the development of the British Empire. Combining these pursuits with a historical interest in the diffusion of Islamic technology, he studied the irrigation systems of southeastern Spain with an eye toward the agricultural development of the Madura district of India.

Markham left the India Office in 1877 and devoted the rest of his life to the promotion of geographical research, exploration, and education. Markham was secretary of the Hakluyt Society (1858-1886) and then president (1889-1909). Under his direction, the society published a series of historical accounts of exploration. Markham edited twenty volumes of the series himself and was responsible for editions of several important treatises in the history of science, including a reedition of Edward Grimston’s translation (1604) of José de Acota’s Natural and Moral History of the Indies; Robert Hue’s Tractatus de globis coelesti et terrestri ac eorem usu conscriptus (1594); and Garcia da Orta’s Colloquies on the Simples and Drugs of India, the latter in Markham’s translation.

Markham’s major work took place in the Royal Geographical Society, which he had joined in 1854. As a secretary from 1863 to 1888 and as president from 1893 to 1905, Markham helped to found a school of geography at Oxford; and it was under his aegis that the Geographical Journal became “the chief repository of geographical information from all parts of the world”. As president of the Geographical Society, he established a research committee for polar exploration designed to ensure the maximum preparation and planning toward the accomplishment of these goals.

The last part of Markham’s career was linked to the fortunes of Commander Robert F. Scott, whose first Antarctic expedition (voyage of the Discovery, 1901-1904) was the crowning achievement of Markham’s exploration program. He continued writing on the subject and played an active role in the planning of Scott’s fatal expedition on the Terra Nova (1910-1912). Described by a navy colleague as a “peripatetic encyclopedia,” Markham’s scholarship suffered from overextended interests and hasty research.

Achievements

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  Sir Clements was the recipient of many honours. He was made Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath in 1896, and orders were conferred upon him by the Sovereigns of Portugal, Brazil, Sweden, and Norway. He was elected Fellow of the Royal Society in 1873 and was Honorary Member of various Academies, and of all the Geographical Societies of Europe and the Americas. Cambridge conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Science. He is commemorated by Mount Markham, 82°51′S 161°21′E, in the Transantarctic range, discovered and named by Scott on his southern march during the Discovery expedition in 1902. The Markham River in Papua New Guinea was named after him; Carsten Borchgrevink discovered and named Markham Island in the Ross Sea during his 1900 expedition, a gesture that was not, however, acknowledged by Markham. The name lives on in Lima, Peru, through Markham College, a private co-educational school.

Works

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  • The Story of Majorca and Minorca

    (The story of the Islands of Majorca and Minorca has never...)

    1909
  • The Paladins of Edwin the Great

    (Very little is known for certain of one of the most impor...)

    1896
  • Franklin's Footsteps

    (This account, published in 1853, was written in response ...)

    1852
  • Travels in Peru and India

    (This book, originally published in 1862, is Markham's per...)

    1862
  • Cuzco and Lima

    (Published in 1856, this is Markham's lively account of hi...)

    1856
  • Richard III, His Life and Character: Reviewed in the Light of Recent Research 1906
  • Contributions Towards a Grammar and Dictionary of Quichua, the Language of the Yncas of Peru 1864
  • A History Of The Abyssinian Expedition 1869
  • A Life of the Great Lord Fairfax 1870
  • Ollanta: An Ancient Ynca Drama 1871
  • A Memoir of the Lady Ana de Osorio, Countess of Chinchon and Vice-Queen of Peru (A. D. 1629-39) with a Plea for the Correct Spelling of the Chinchona Genus 1874
  • A General Sketch Of The History Of Persia 1874
  • The Threshold of the Unknown Region 1875
  • Narratives of the Mission of George Bogle to Tibet: And of the Journey of Thomas Manning to Lhasa 1877
  • A Memoir On the Indian Surveys 1878
  • Peruvian bark 1880
  • The Voyages of William Baffin 1881
  • The war between Peru and Chile, 1879-1882 1882
  • A Naval Career During the old War 1883
  • The Sea Fathers 1885
  • Life of Robert Fairfax of Steeton Vice-Admiral 1885
  • The fighting Veres 1888
  • A Life of John Davis: The Navigator 1889
  • Life of Christopher Columbus 1892
  • A History of Peru 1892
  • Major James Rennel and the Rise of Modern English Geography 1895
  • The Incas of Peru 1912
  • The lands of silence 1921

Religion

Despite being from religious family Markham wasn't regularly expressing his views on this topic.

Politics

Markham was a convinced British colonialist.

Views

Markham entered the Royal Navy in 1844 as an officer cadet. He was posted to the Pacific station, where he spent three years. In 1845 he made his first visit to Peru, landing at Callao, and while in the region he learned Spanish. Following his service in the Pacific, Markham participated in the expedition mounted to look for Sir John Franklin, the Arctic explorer, and so gained firsthand knowledge of the difficulty of movement in the Polar regions. On returning from the Arctic, Markham stopped in Boston, where he met William Prescott, author of History of he Conquest of Mexico (1843) and History of the Conquest of Peru (1847), enormously popular books that Markham had already read and admired and that probably greatly influenced his thoughts about a future career. In 1851, after just seven years, Markham left the navy against the desires of his family but with hopes of becoming an explorer and writer.

Markham considered himself a comparative and historical geographer and stressed the value of historical records for the study of physical geography. As president, he enjoined both the Geographical Society and the nation to embark upon what he called an “Antarctic crusade”. He believed that the polar regions, particularly the southern one, comprised the single great geographical problem left for England to solve. Markham’s program for polar exploration was carefully conceived. His chief arctic canons were that progress should always be made along the coastlines and that in order to be successful, an expedition had to remain over at least one winter in order to collect significant meteorological and magnetic data. Polar research should have two principal focuses: work conducted on the shore and that carried out aboard ship along the coasts. Research on shore would include (1) geographical exploration, (2) geology, (3) studies of glaciation, (4) magnetic observations, (5) meteorological observations, (6) pendulum observation, (7) studies of tides, and (8) inshore and land biology. Shipboard tasks would comprise (1) surveying coastlines, (2) magnetic observations, (3) meteorological studies, (4) deep-sea sounding, and (5) marine biology.

Not interested in promoting a mere race to the poles, Markham frequently stressed that the aim of such expeditions was to “secure useful scientific results”. Although he worked closely with the Royal Society in the planning of polar expeditions, Markham always favored navy men over scientists to lead expeditions.

Membership

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  Royal Geographical Society , United Kingdom

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  Hakluyt Society , United Kingdom

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  Royal Society , United Kingdom

Personality

Markham's organizational and promotional talents sufficed to make him the leading figure of Victorian geography. Underneath a somewhat abrupt and detached manner, Sir Clements Robert Markham concealed strong feelings and a warm and sympathetic heart. He was the staunchest of friends and the indomitable champion of any cause he made his own. Naturally conservative, he was specially jealous of any departure from the traditions of the Society, but as facts show he did not hesitate to welcome new departures which contributed to the promotion of its objects. As might have been expected he had his prejudices and dislikes, but even these, strong as they may have been sometimes, were frequently overcome by an appeal to his better judgment and his heart. Without ostentation, he helped many a needy man.

Connections

In April 1857, Markham married Mary Anne Isabella Caroline Chichester who was often called Minna, who accompanied him on the cinchona mission to Peru and India. Their only child, a daughter Mary Louise (known as May), was born in 1859.

Father:

David Frederick Markham

Mother:

Catherine Milner

Grandfather:

William Markham

Wife:

Mary Anne Isabella Caroline Chichester

Daughter:

Mary Louise Markham

protege:

Robert Scott

Friend:

Francis McClintock

References

• Dictionary of Scientific Biography: Volumes 9 & 10
  1980