Sir Clements Robert Markham

MARKHAM, SIR CLEMENTS ROBERT (183o-1916), C.B. (1871), K.C.B. (1896), English geographer and historical writer, son of the Rev. David F. Markham, canon of Windsor, was born on July 20, 183o at Stillingfleet, near York, and went to Westminster school. He entered the navy in 1844 and passed for a lieutenant in 1851. In 1850-51 he served on the Franklin search expedition in the Arctic regions, under Captain Austin. He retired from the navy in 5852, and then travelled in Peru and the forests of the eastern Andes. In 1853 Markham entered the Civil service, and in 1854 was appointed on the board of control of the East India Company. He visited South America again in 1860, in order to arrange for the introduction of the cinchona plant into India, a service of the highest value. In 1865 he visited Ceylon and India, to report upon the Tinnevelly pearl-fishery and the cinchona plan tations. From 1867-77 the geographical section of the India office was under his charge. On the Abyssinian expedition of 1867 68 he served as geographer, and was present at the storming of Magdala. He was elected F.R.S. in 1873. In 1875 he accompanied the Arctic expedition under Sir George Nares as far as Greenland. In later years Sir Clements Markham travelled extensively in western Asia and the United States. He was secretary to the Hakluyt Society from 1858-87, and its president from 1889-1909. From 1863-88 he acted as secretary to the Royal Geographical Society, and was elected president in 1893, retaining office for the unprecedented period of 12 years. He was president of the Inter national Geographical Congress which met in London in 1895. It was almost entirely due to his exertions that funds were ob tained for the National Antarctic Expedition under Captain Robert Scott, which left England in the summer of 1901. After his retire ment from the India Office, he continued to devote himself to geographical research and travelled widely. He died in London on Jan. 3o, 1916.

Sir Clements Markham conducted the Geographical Magazine from 1872-78, when it became merged in the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society. Among his many publications may

be mentioned : Peru (188o) ; The War between Chili and Peru 3rd ed., 1883) ; Life of John Davis the Navigator (1889) ; a Life of Richard III. (1906) ; also lives of Admiral Fair fax, Admiral John Markham, Columbus and Major Rennel; a History of Peru; editions with introduction of 20 works for the Hakluyt Society, of which 14 were also translations; about 7o papers in the Royal Geographical Society's Journal. The Lands of Silence, an important history of Arctic and Antarctic exploration, was completed posthumously by Dr. H. H. Guillemard and pub lished in 1921.

See Sir A. H. Markham, The Life of Sir Clements Markham (1917) ; Sir J. Scott Keltie, Memoir in The Geographical Journal vol. xlvii.

(19'6).

MARKHAM, EDWIN

(1852-194o), an American poet, was born at Oregon City, State of Oregon, on April 23, 1852, but grew to manhood on a lonely but beautiful valley ranch in cen tral California. He attended the State normal school at San Jose, and later graduated from Christian college at Santa Rosa, after which he became a high school principal and superintendent at various places and finally headmaster at the Tompkins Obser vation school, Oakland, connected with the University of Cali fornia. This he gave up in 1899, after his poetry had won favour, and devoted himself to writing and lecturing. He gained national fame in 1899 with the newspaper publication of "The Man with the Hoe," his most widely known poem. It so well expressed the economic and social mood of the time that it was reprinted in nearly every newspaper of the country and was the subject of wide editorial comment. His first book of verse The Man with the Hoe and Other Poems (1899) was followed in 19or by Lincoln and Other Poems, the dignified title piece of which found almost as much favour as "The Man with the Hoe." His third and fourth books of verse, Shoes of Happiness (1915) and Gates of Paradise (192o) show, perhaps, a higher general quality than the first two, though they lack single poems with such wide appeal. In 1937 he published The Star of Araby.