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Barbara Millar on explorer Joseph Thomson

The escalation of European claims to African territory, known as the 'Scramble for Africa' (a term first used by The Times in 1884) was 'the Victorian equivalent of the penetration of outer space for the superpowers of the 20th century', according to A.N. Wilson in his book 'The Victorians'. The extraordinary significance for Victorians of African explorers such as Scots missionary David Livingstone and American journalist Henry Morton Stanley, was 'that they had been where no white man had trod and done it in a scientific spirit', Wilson adds.
     Joseph Thomson, born on St Valentine's Day 1858 in Penpont, near Thornhill in Dumfriesshire, was one of those explorers. Initially, it seemed as though Thomson, the youngest of six children, would follow the same trade as his father William, who was tenant of a stonemason and quarrying business, into which the young Joseph was apprenticed. But, encouraged by his mother Agnes, he developed a keen interest in geology and botany and, after schooling at the local Wallace Academy, went on to Edinburgh University to study geology, mineralogy and natural history, winning medals in his final examinations in 1878.
     Much of his spare time had been spent reading accounts of the African expeditions of Livingstone and Stanley and so, when an article appeared in the Dumfries and Galloway Standard and Advertiser in June 1878, about the Royal Geographical Society's (RGS) proposed expedition in 1879 to east Africa under the leadership of Scottish explorer and cartographer (Alexander) Keith Johnston (1844-1879), Thomson applied to join – offering to work in any capacity, paid or unpaid. He got the job as 'geologist and naturalist to the expedition', which set off to establish a route from Dar-Es-Salaam to Lake Nyasa and Lake Tanganyika. However, within weeks of arrival in Africa, Johnston was afflicted by dysentery. He staggered on and was carried a great distance by hammock but, ultimately, some 120 miles inland from Dar-Es-Salaam, he died and leadership passed to the 21-year-old Thomson, the only other European on the expedition.
     According to James McCarthy, Keith Johnston's biographer, Thomson had had great difficulty getting on with his leader. Their personalities were completely different and incompatible, McCarthy claims, with Johnston quiet, introspective and taciturn, whereas Thomson was 'bumptious and outgoing', so much so that he often embarrassed his leader. Johnston made many attempts to have his assistant recalled but, ironically, Thomson continued the journey after Johnston died and returned a hero.
     Thomson movingly describes the demise of Johnston in his report to the RGS in 1879: 'On the day after our arrival at Beho Beho, we constructed a hut into which we moved our leader but the little we could do was of no avail...from the day we reached the village, he gradually became worse and worse, and only too clearly was death stamped on his face.'

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