John Hanning Speke (1827-1864), born in Somerset, served in the Indian Army, and explored in the Himalayas and Tibet. In 1854, having just completed his army service, he joined an expedition under the command of the adventurer and explorer Lieutenant (afterwards Sir Richard) Burton to explore Somalia. In 1855 a night attack was made on the camp by the Somalis, in which Speke was dangerously wounded. He left for England in June 1855, and almost immediately volunteered for the Crimean campaign, in which he served until the close of the war.

In 1856 Speke joined Burton’s expedition to Equatorial Africa. The instructions of the Royal Geographical Society to Burton were to penetrate inland from the east coast of Africa, and make the best way to the reputed lake of Nyasa, to determine the position and limits of that lake, and to explore the country around it. Travel was slow: the local chiefs were obstructive, Burton was suffering from fever, and Speke was blinded by ophthalmia. Nevertheless, they had reached and explored Lake Tanganyika by 1858.

Burton was still ill, so Speke went on without him, and discovered the vast lake which he called Victoria Nyanza. When he re-joined Burton, Speke immediately expressed his belief that he had discovered the source of the Nile, but on this point his fellow traveller was sceptical, and a coolness between the two explorers, arising in the first instance from this difference of opinion, subsequently increased and destroyed their old friendship.

The rupture became complete when Speke, in two articles in Blackwood's Magazine, openly assumed the main credit of the expedition and expressed the view that the Victoria Nyanza was the source of the Nile. These articles were answered by Burton in his book The Lake Regions of Equatorial Africa, in which he criticised Speke's Nile theory.

Speke set off on a new expedition in 1860 with Captain James Augustus Grant, an old friend and fellow officer in the Indian army. The objects of the expedition were to explore the Victoria Nyanza and to verify, if possible, Speke's view that it was the source of the Nile. Again, progress was difficult. Local tribes were troublesome, Speke was ill, and the party was attacked and plundered. They explored around the lake; at last Speke reached the place where the Nile leaves the Victoria Nyanza, and named it Ripon Falls. He wanted to continue down the river to make sure it was the Nile, but was prevented by suspicious tribes, and had to travel by land.

On 17 June 1863 Speke and Grant landed at Southampton and five days later received a public welcome at a special meeting of the Royal Geographic Society. The fact that Speke's proof of the Victoria Nyanza being the source of the Nile was not absolute, owing to the river being left for a considerable distance, rendered his achievement open to some doubt, and his discoveries and theories were criticised by Burton and McQueen in their joint production The Nile Basin (1864). Great public interest was aroused, and it was arranged that Speke should meet his formidable critic Richard Burton, and debate the subject with him at the meeting of the geographical section of the British Association at Bath on 18 September 1864. But on the afternoon of the day before the discussion Speke, who was staying with his uncle at Neston Park, near Bath, accidentally shot himself getting over a low wall when partridge-shooting and died soon afterwards.

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