WThe 1874 Transit of Venus Expedition to Hawaii was an astronomical expedition by British scientists to observe the December 8 transit of Venus at three separate observing sites in the Hawaiian Islands, then known as the Sandwich Islands. It was one of five 1874 transit expeditions organized by George Biddell Airy, Astronomer Royal at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. The purpose of the expedition was to obtain an accurate estimate of the astronomical unit (AU), the distance from the Earth to the Sun, by measuring solar parallax. Previous efforts to obtain a precise value of an AU in 1769 had been hampered by the black drop effect. There is a collection of papers relating to this expedition at the Cambridge Digital Library.
WThe 1921 British Mount Everest reconnaissance expedition set off to explore how it might be possible to get to the vicinity of Mount Everest, to reconnoitre possible routes for ascending the mountain, and – if possible – make the first ascent of the highest mountain in the world. At that time Nepal was closed to foreigners, so any approach had to be from the north, through Tibet. A feasible route was discovered from the east up the Kharta Glacier and then crossing the Lhakpa La pass north east of Everest. It was then necessary to descend to the East Rongbuk Glacier before climbing again to Everest's North Col. However, although the North Col was reached, it was not possible to climb further before the expedition had to withdraw.
WThe 1922 British Mount Everest expedition was the first mountaineering expedition with the express aim of making the first ascent of Mount Everest. This was also the first expedition that attempted to climb Everest using bottled oxygen. The expedition would attempt to climb Everest from the northern side out of Tibet. At the time, Everest could not be attempted from the south out of Nepal as the country was closed to Western foreigners.
WThe 1924 British Mount Everest expedition was—after the 1922 British Mount Everest expedition—the 2nd expedition with the goal of achieving the first ascent of Mount Everest. After two summit attempts in which Edward Norton set a world altitude record of 28,126 feet (8572 m), the mountaineers George Mallory and Andrew "Sandy" Irvine disappeared on the third attempt. Their disappearance has given rise to the long-standing unanswered question of whether or not the pair climbed to the summit. Mallory's body was found in 1999 at 26,760 feet (8155 m), but the resulting clues did not provide conclusive evidence as to whether the summit was reached.
WThe 1932–33 East Greenland expedition, also known as the Pan Am expedition, was a small expedition to Greenland led by Henry "Gino" Watkins until his death and then by John Rymill. The expedition was intended to continue the work of the previous British Arctic Air Route Expedition (BAARE) that had mapped unexplored sections of Greenland in 1930–1931.
WThe 1933 British Mount Everest expedition was, after the reconnaissance expedition of 1921, and the 1922 and 1924 expeditions, the fourth British expedition to Mount Everest and the third with the intention of making the first ascent.
WLed by Bill Tilman, the 1938 British Mount Everest expedition was a low-key, low-cost expedition which was unlucky in encountering a very early monsoon. The weather conditions defeated the attempts to reach the summit. The North Col was climbed for the first time from the west and an altitude of 27,200 feet (8,300 m) was reached on the North Ridge.
WThe 1953 British Mount Everest expedition was the ninth mountaineering expedition to attempt the first ascent of Mount Everest, and the first confirmed to have succeeded when Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reached the summit on Friday, 29 May 1953. Led by Colonel John Hunt, it was organised and financed by the Joint Himalayan Committee. News of the expedition's success reached London in time to be released on the morning of Queen Elizabeth II's coronation, on the 2nd of June that year.
WThe Alexandria expedition of 1807 or Fraser expedition was an operation by the Royal Navy and the British Army during the Anglo-Turkish War (1807–1809) of the Napoleonic Wars to capture Alexandria in Egypt with the purpose of securing a base of operations against the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean Sea. It was a part of a larger strategy against the Ottoman-French alliance of the Ottoman Sultan Selim III. It resulted in the occupation of Alexandria from 18 March to 25 September 1807. The people of Alexandria, being disaffected towards Muhammad Ali, opened the gates of the city to the British forces, allowing for one of the easiest conquests of a city by the British forces during the Napoleonic Wars. Attempts to proceed inland however, were to prove disastrous with British troops being twice defeated in battles at Rosetta, at a cost of over 900 officers and men killed and more than 500 captured. Consequently British troops were forced to retreat to Alexandria, where they remained besieged. After further inconclusive operations against the Egyptian forces and being unable to gather supplies, the Expedition was forced to embark the transports again, and leave Alexandria, not having gained any significant position of influence in Egypt or reached any specific goals towards influencing the Ottoman Empire's improving relations with France.
WThe 1970 British Annapurna South Face expedition was a Himalayan climb that was the first to take a deliberately difficult route up the face of an 8,000-metre mountain. On 27 May 1970 Don Whillans and Dougal Haston reached the summit of Annapurna I which at 26,545 feet (8,091 m) is the highest peak in the Annapurna Massif in Nepal. Chris Bonington led the expedition which approached up a glacier from the Annapurna Sanctuary and then used rock climbing techniques to put fixed ropes up the steep South Face. Although the plan had been to use supplementary oxygen, in the event it was not possible to carry any cylinders high enough for the lead climbers to use on their summit bid.
WThe 1952 British expedition to Cho Oyu the Turquoise Goddess was organised by the Joint Himalayan Committee. It had been hoped to follow up the 1951 Everest expedition with another British attempt on Everest in 1952, but Nepal had accepted a Swiss application for 1952, to be followed in 1953 with a British attempt. So in 1952 Eric Shipton was to lead an attempt to ascend Cho Oyu, and Griffith Pugh was to trial oxygen equipment and train members for 1953. But the expedition failed both aims; that plus Shipton’s poor leadership and planning resulted in his replacement as leader for the 1953 expedition.
WThe British Arctic Air Route Expedition (BAARE) was a privately funded expedition to the east coast and interior of the island of Greenland from 1930 to 1931. Led by Gino Watkins, it aimed to improve maps and charts of poorly surveyed sections of Greenland's coastline, and to gather climate data from the coast and interior during the north polar winter. This venture was followed by the smaller 1932–1933 East Greenland expedition, led by Watkins until his death.
WThe British Arctic Expedition of 1875–1876, led by Sir George Strong Nares, was sent by the British Admiralty to attempt to reach the North Pole via Smith Sound. Two ships, HMS Alert and HMS Discovery—captained by Henry Frederick Stephenson—sailed from Portsmouth on 29 May 1875. Although the expedition failed to reach the North Pole, the coasts of Greenland and Ellesmere Island were extensively explored and large amounts of scientific data were collected.
WThe British Australian (and) New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (BANZARE) was a research expedition into Antarctica between 1929 and 1931, involving two voyages over consecutive Austral summers. It was a British Commonwealth initiative, driven more by geopolitics than science, and funded by the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.
WThe British expedition to Tibet, also known as the British invasion of Tibet or the Younghusband expedition to Tibet began in December 1903 and lasted until September 1904. The expedition was effectively a temporary invasion by British Indian forces under the auspices of the Tibet Frontier Commission, whose purported mission was to establish diplomatic relations and resolve the dispute over the border between Tibet and Sikkim. In the nineteenth century, the British had conquered Burma and Sikkim, with the whole southern flank of Tibet coming under the control of the British Raj. Tibet, ruled by the Dalai Lama under the Ganden Phodrang government, was the only Himalayan state under Chinese instead of British influence.
WThe British North Greenland expedition was a British scientific mission, led by Commander James Simpson RN, which lasted from July 1952 to August 1954. A total of 30 men took part, though not all stayed for both years.
WThe Challenger expedition of 1872–1876 was a scientific program that made many discoveries to lay the foundation of oceanography. The expedition was named after the naval vessel that undertook the trip, HMS Challenger.
WThe Coppermine expedition was a British overland undertaking to survey and chart the area from Hudson Bay to the north coast of Canada, eastwards from the mouth of the Coppermine River. The expedition was organised by the Royal Navy as part of its attempt to discover and map the Northwest Passage. It was the first of three Arctic expeditions to be led by John Franklin and also included George Back and John Richardson, both of whom would become notable Arctic explorers in their own right.
WThe Discovery Expedition of 1901–1904, known officially as the British National Antarctic Expedition, was the first official British exploration of the Antarctic regions since the voyage of James Clark Ross sixty years earlier (1839-1843). Organized on a large scale under a joint committee of the Royal Society and the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), the new expedition carried out scientific research and geographical exploration in what was then largely an untouched continent. It launched the Antarctic careers of many who would become leading figures in the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, including Robert Falcon Scott who led the expedition, Ernest Shackleton, Edward Wilson, Frank Wild, Tom Crean and William Lashly.
WThe Dundee Whaling Expedition (1892–1893) was a commercial voyage from Scotland to Antarctica.
WFranklin's lost expedition was a British voyage of Arctic exploration led by Captain Sir John Franklin that departed from England in 1845 aboard two ships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, and was assigned to traverse the last unnavigated sections of the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic. The expedition met with disaster after both ships and their crews, a total of 129 officers and men, became icebound in Victoria Strait near King William Island, in what is today the Canadian territory of Nunavut. After being icebound for more than a year, Erebus and Terror were abandoned in April 1848, by which point Franklin and nearly two dozen others had died. The survivors, now led by Franklin's deputy Francis Crozier and Erebus' captain James Fitzjames, set out for the Canadian mainland and disappeared.
WThe Imperial Trans-Antarctic expedition of 1914–1917 is considered to be the last major expedition of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Conceived by Sir Ernest Shackleton, the expedition was an attempt to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent. After Amundsen's South Pole expedition in 1911, this crossing remained, in Shackleton's words, the "one great main object of Antarctic journeyings". The expedition failed to accomplish this objective, but became recognized instead as an epic feat of endurance.
WThe Jackson–Harmsworth expedition of 1894–1897 to Franz Josef Land was led by British Arctic explorer Frederick George Jackson and financed by newspaper proprietor Alfred Harmsworth. Jackson had been misled by false maps into believing that Franz Joseph Land was a land mass that extended to the North Pole. The survey which was the main work of the expedition eventually proved that the land was in fact an archipelago, whose northernmost island stretched no further than 81° N.
WThe Mackenzie River expedition of 1825–1827 was the second of three Arctic expeditions led by explorer John Franklin and organized by the Royal Navy. It had as its goal the exploration of the North American coast between the mouths of the Mackenzie and Coppermine rivers and the Bering Strait, in what is now present-day Alaska, Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut. Franklin was accompanied by George Back and John Richardson, both of whom he had previously collaborated with during the disastrous Coppermine expedition of 1819–1821. Unlike Franklin's previous expedition, this one was largely successful, and resulted in the mapping of more than 1,000 kilometres (620 mi) of new coastline between the Kent Peninsula and Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, an area that until then had remained largely unexplored by Europeans.
WThe McClintock Arctic expedition of 1857 was a British effort to locate the last remains of Franklin's lost expedition. Led by Francis Leopold McClintock aboard the steam yacht Fox, the expedition spent two years in the region and ultimately returned with the only written message recovered from the doomed expedition. McClintock and crew were awarded the Arctic medal in recognition of their achievements.
WThe McClure Arctic expedition of 1850, among numerous British search efforts to determine the fate of the Franklin's lost expedition, is distinguished as the voyage during which the Irish explorer Robert McClure became the first person to confirm and transit the Northwest Passage by a combination of sea travel and sledging.
WThe 1975 British Mount Everest Southwest Face expedition was the first to successfully climb Mount Everest by ascending one of its faces. In the post-monsoon season Chris Bonington led the expedition which used rock climbing techniques to put fixed ropes up the face from the Western Cwm to just below the South Summit. A key aspect of the success of the climb was the scaling of the cliffs of the Rock Band at about 8,200 metres (27,000 ft) by Nick Estcourt and Tut Braithwaite. Two teams then climbed to the South Summit and followed the Southeast Ridge to the main summit – Dougal Haston with Doug Scott on 24 September 1975, who at the South Summit made the highest ever bivouac for that time, and Peter Boardman with Pertemba two days later. It is thought that Mick Burke fell to his death shortly after he had also reached the top. British climbers reached the summit of Everest for the first time in an event that has been described as "the apotheosis of the big, military-style expeditions".
WThe 1976 British and Nepalese Army Expedition to Everest resulted in the successful summit of Mount Everest via its South Face on 16 May. This was the second time this had been achieved - less than a year previously, the 1975 British Mount Everest Southwest Face expedition being the first up the same route. The expedition by the British Army and Royal Nepalese Army was under the command of Tony Streather, and the summiteers were Special Air Service soldiers Bronco Lane and Brummie Stokes.
WThe Shipton–Tilman Nanda Devi expeditions took place in the 1930s. Nanda Devi is a Himalayan mountain in what was then the Garhwal District in northern India, just west of Nepal, and at one time it was thought to be the highest mountain in the world.
WThe Nile Expedition, sometimes called the Gordon Relief Expedition (1884–85), was a British mission to relieve Major-General Charles George Gordon at Khartoum, Sudan. Gordon had been sent to the Sudan to help Egyptians evacuate from Sudan after Britain decided to abandon the country in the face of a rebellion led by self-proclaimed Mahdi, Mahommed Ahmed. A contingent of Canadians was recruited to help the British navigate their small boats up the Nile River. The Nile Expedition was the first overseas expedition by Canadians in a British imperial conflict, although the Nile Voyageurs were civilian employees and did not wear uniforms.
WThe Nimrod Expedition of 1907–1909, otherwise known as the British Antarctic Expedition, was the first of three successful expeditions to the Antarctic led by Ernest Shackleton. Its main target, among a range of geographical and scientific objectives, was to be first to the South Pole. This was not attained, but the expedition's southern march reached a Farthest South latitude of 88° 23' S, just 97.5 nautical miles from the pole. This was by far the longest southern polar journey to that date and a record convergence on either Pole. A separate group led by Welsh Australian geology professor Edgeworth David reached the estimated location of the South Magnetic Pole, and the expedition also achieved the first ascent of Mount Erebus, Antarctica's second highest volcano.
WThe British North American Exploring Expedition, commonly called the Palliser expedition, explored and surveyed the open prairies and rugged wilderness of western Canada from 1857 to 1860. The expedition was led by John Palliser, and accompanied by a party of four other men: James Hector, Eugène Bourgeau, Thomas Blakiston and John W. Sullivan. With the support of the British government and the Royal Geographical Society it became an official expedition that provided research and information on the landscape of western Canada. The purpose of the expedition was to gather scientific information on Rupert's Land, including information on the geography, climate, soil, flora and fauna, to discover its capabilities for settlement and transportation. This was the first detailed and scientific survey of the region from Lake Superior to the southern passes of the Rocky Mountains. The expedition provided a better understanding about western Canada and the new observations and knowledge about the landscape was influential in the expansion and development in the western prairies. The information that was gathered impacted the changes in the economy, settlement, transportation, indigenous communities and the expansionist campaign.
WThe Scottish National Antarctic Expedition (SNAE), 1902–1904, was organised and led by William Speirs Bruce, a natural scientist and former medical student from the University of Edinburgh. Although overshadowed in terms of prestige by Robert Falcon Scott's concurrent Discovery Expedition, the SNAE completed a full programme of exploration and scientific work. Its achievements included the establishment of a manned meteorological station, the first in Antarctic territory, and the discovery of new land to the east of the Weddell Sea. Its large collection of biological and geological specimens, together with those from Bruce's earlier travels, led to the establishment of the Scottish Oceanographical Laboratory in 1906.
WThe second voyage of HMS Beagle, from 27 December 1831 to 2 October 1836, was the second survey expedition of HMS Beagle, under captain Robert FitzRoy who had taken over command of the ship on its first voyage after the previous captain committed suicide. FitzRoy had already thought of the advantages of having an expert in geology on board, and sought a gentleman naturalist to accompany them as a supernumerary. At the age of 22, the graduate Charles Darwin hoped to see the tropics before becoming a parson, and accepted the opportunity. He was greatly influenced by reading Charles Lyell's Principles of Geology during the voyage. By the end of the expedition, Darwin had already made his name as a geologist and fossil collector, and the publication of his journal which became known as The Voyage of the Beagle gave him wide renown as a writer.
WThe Second Zambesi expedition, from 1858 to 1864, was launched by the Royal Geographical Society of Britain to explore Southeast Africa for mineral deposits and other natural resources. The expedition led to the establishment of the Central Africa Mission and was under the command of Dr. David Livingstone, who would become famous for his journeys into the interior of Africa.
WThe Shackleton–Rowett Expedition (1921–22) was Sir Ernest Shackleton's last Antarctic project, and the final episode in the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. The venture, financed by John Quiller Rowett, is sometimes referred to as the Quest Expedition after its ship Quest, a converted Norwegian sealer. Shackleton had originally intended to go to the Arctic and explore the Beaufort Sea, but this plan was abandoned when the Canadian government withheld financial support; Shackleton thereupon switched his attention to the Antarctic. Quest, smaller than any recent Antarctic exploration vessel, soon proved inadequate for its task, and progress south was delayed by its poor sailing performance and by frequent engine problems. Before the expedition's work could properly begin, Shackleton died on board the ship, just after its arrival at the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia. The major part of the subsequent attenuated expedition was a three-month cruise to the eastern Antarctic, under the leadership of the party's second-in-command, Frank Wild. The shortcomings of Quest were soon in evidence: slow speed, heavy fuel consumption, a tendency to roll in heavy seas, and a steady leak. The ship was unable to proceed further than longitude 20°E, well short of its easterly target, and its engine's low power coupled with its unsuitable bows was insufficient for it to penetrate southward through the pack ice. Following several fruitless attempts, Wild returned the ship to South Georgia, on the way visiting Elephant Island where he and 21 others had been stranded after the sinking of the ship Endurance, during Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition six years earlier. Wild had thoughts of a second, more productive season in the ice, and took the ship to Cape Town for a refit. Here, in June 1922, he received a message from Rowett ordering the ship home to England, so the expedition ended quietly. The Quest voyage is not greatly regarded in the histories of polar exploration, due to the event that defines it in public memory, overshadowing its other activities: Shackleton's untimely death.
WThe Sikkim expedition was an 1888 British military expedition to expel Tibetan forces from Sikkim in present-day north east India. The roots of the conflict lay in British-Tibetan competition for sovereignty over Sikkim.
WThe Southern Cross Expedition, otherwise known as the British Antarctic Expedition, 1898–1900, was the first British venture of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, and the forerunner of the more celebrated journeys of Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton. The brainchild of the Anglo-Norwegian explorer Carsten Borchgrevink, it was the first expedition to over-winter on the Antarctic mainland, the first to visit the Great Ice Barrier—later known as the Ross Ice Shelf—since Sir James Clark Ross's groundbreaking expedition of 1839 to 1843, and the first to effect a landing on the Barrier's surface. It also pioneered the use of dogs and sledges in Antarctic travel.
WThe Stairs Expedition to Katanga (1891−92), led by Captain William Stairs, was the winner in a race between two imperial powers to claim Katanga, a vast mineral-rich territory in Central Africa for colonization. The mission became notable when a local chief,, was killed, and also for the fact that Stairs, the leader of one side, actually held a commission in the army of the other.
WThe Terra Nova Expedition, officially the British Antarctic Expedition, was an expedition to Antarctica which took place between 1910 and 1913. It was led by Robert Falcon Scott and had various scientific and geographical objectives. Scott wished to continue the scientific work that he had begun when leading the Discovery expedition to the Antarctic from 1901 to 1904. He also wanted to be the first to reach the geographic South Pole. He and four companions attained the pole on 17 January 1912, where they found that the Norwegian team led by Roald Amundsen had preceded them by 34 days. Scott's entire party of five died on the return journey from the pole; some of their bodies, journals, and photographs were found by a search party eight months later.