Markham, SIR CLEMENTS ROBERT, F.R.S.,

Markham, SIR CLEMENTS ROBERT, F.R.S., and since 1896 K.C.B., geographer, is a son of the Rev. D. Markham, canon of Windsor. He was born 1830 at Stillingfleet, near York, educated at Westminster, from which school he entered the navy in 1844. Immediately on passing as lieutenant in 1851 he left the navy, and in 1855 became a clerk in the Board of Control. In 1863 he was elected secretary to the Royal Geographical Society, and in 1867 became assistant-secretary in the India Office. In 1868 he was placed in charge of the geographical department in that office. He served in the Arctic expedition (1850-51) in search of Sir John Franklin. He explored (1852-54) Peru and the forests of the Eastern Andes; he introduced (1860) the cultivation of the cinchona plant from South America into India; served as geographer (1867-68) in the Abyssinian expedition, and was present at the storming of Magdala. Of his numerous publications, which include many translations from the Spanish, and several antiquarian and genealogical works, mention can only here be made of his Grammar and Dictionary of the Ynca Language (1863-64); The Threshold of the Unknown Region (1874; 4 eds.); The War between Chili and Peru (1879; 3 eds.); Missions to Thibet (1877; 2 eds.); his Reports on the Moral and National Progress of India for 1871-73; and his Life of John Davis, in the 'Explorers' series (1889). He edited the Geographical Magazine from 1872 to 1878.