Date(s): 14 December 2015
Booking Link: https://rcsedlibrary2016.eventbrite.co.uk
PLEASE NOTE THIS TALK IS NOW SOLD OUTJohn Rae (1813 –1893) was born and raised in the Orkney Islands. Rae became a Licentiate of The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1833 before joining the Hudson Bay Company as a ship’s surgeon. A talented botanist, geologist, anthropologist and cartographer, he was to become northern Canada's most distinguished explorer, and gained widespread attention by discovering the fate of the expedition by Sir John Franklin. In doing so Rae uncovered evidence that Franklin’s crew had turned to cannibalism in a bid to survive, a revelation which horrified Victorian Britain.
Mr Ken Stewart, a Fellow of The Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh, has prepared a fascinating and informative lecture on a man who can justifiably be called one of the world’s greatest ever Arctic explorers but was, in many ways, a forgotten hero.
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