Background
William George Browne was born at Great Tower Hill, London, United Kingdom on the 25th of July 1768.
William George Browne was born at Great Tower Hill, London, United Kingdom on the 25th of July 1768.
At seventeen William George Browne was sent to Oriel College, Oxford.
At seventeen William George Browne was sent to Oriel College, Oxford. But the fame of James Bruce"s travels, and of the first discoveries made by the African Association, made him determined to become an explorer of Central Africa. He went first to Egypt, arriving at Alexandria in January 1792.
He spent some time in visiting the oasis of Siwa or Jupiter Ammon, and employed the remainder of the year in studying Arabic and in examining the ruins of Ancient Egypt.
In the spring of 1793 he visited Sinai, and in May set out for Darfur, joining the great caravan which every year went by the desert route from Egypt to that country. This was his most important journey, in which he acquired a great variety of original information.
He was forcibly detained by the sultan of Darfur and endured much hardship, being unable to effect his purpose of returning by Ethiopia (then known as Abyssinia). He was, however, allowed to return to Egypt with the caravan in 1796.
After this he spent a year in Syria, and did not arrive in London till September 1798.
In 1800 Browne again left England, and spent three years in visiting Greece, some parts of Asia Minor and Sicily. In 1812 he once more set out for the East, proposing to penetrate to Samarkland and survey the most interesting regions of central Asia. He spent the winter in Smyrna, and in the spring of 1813 travelled through Asia Minor and Armenia, made a short stay at Erzurum, and arrived on the June 1 at Tabriz.
About the end of the summer of 1813 he left Tabriz for Tehran, intending to proceed further eastwards, but was shortly afterwards murdered.
Some bones, believed to be his, were afterwards found and interred near the grave of Jean de Thévenot, the French traveller.