SPEKE, HUGH (1656–c. 1724), English writer and agitator, was a son of George Speke (d. 1690) of White Lackington, Somerset. The older Speke was a member of the Green Ribbon Club, the great Whig organization which was founded in 1675, and was a supporter of the duke of Monmouth, voting for the Exclusion Bill in 1681. Educated at St John’s College, Oxford, Hugh Speke joined the Green Ribbon Club, and in 1683 he was put in prison for asserting that Arthur Capell, earl of Essex, another of Monmouth's supporters, had been murdered by the friends of the duke of York. He was tried and sentenced to pay a fine, but he refused to find the money, and remained in prison for three years, being in captivity during Monmouth's rebellion, in consequence of which his brother Charles was hanged at Ilminster. In prison Speke kept a printing-press, and from this he issued the Address to all the English Protestants in the Present Army, a manifesto written by the Whig divine Samuel Johnson (1649–1703), urging the soldiers to mutiny. In 1687 he was released, and in 1688 he served James II. as a spy in the camp of William of Orange. In December of this year a document, apparently official, was found by a London bookseller. This called upon the Protestants to disarm their Roman Catholic neighbours; it was freely circulated, and much damage was done to property in London before it was found that it was a forgery. It appears to have been the work of Speke, although this was not known until 1709, when he asserted his authorship in his Memoirs of the Most Remarkable Passages and Transactions of the Revolution. He afterwards issued these memoirs with modifications as The Secret History of the Happy Revolution in 1688 (1715). After imploring both Anne and George I. to reward his past services, Speke died in obscurity before 1725.
SPEKE, JOHN HANNING (1827–1864), English explorer,
discoverer of the source of the Nile, was born on the 4th of May
1827 at Jordans near Ilminster, Somersetshire. On his father’s
side he descended from the ancient Yorkshire family of Espec,
a branch of which migrated to Somerset in the 15th century.
His mother was a Miss Georgina Hanning, of Dillington Park,
Somerset. Through his mother’s influence with the duke of
Wellington he obtained a commission in the Indian Army, which
he entered in 1844. He served in Sir Colin Campbell’s division
in the Punjab campaigns, and acquired considerable repute
both as a soldier and as a sportsman and naturalist. When on
furlough Captain Speke had explored portions of the Himalayas,
had crossed the frontier into Tibet and mapped part of its
south-western districts; but his attention was at an early date
turned to the great problems of African geography, and in 1854
he began his brief and brilliant African career by joining Captain
(afterwards Sir) Richard Burton in an expedition into the interior
of Somaliland, the incidents of which are narrated in What led
to the Discovery of the Source of the Nile (London, 1864). In
April 1854 the expedition was attacked by Somalis near Berbera,
one officer being killed, Burton slightly, and Speke severely
wounded. Invalided home, Speke shortly afterwards volunteered
for the Crimea and served during the war with a regiment of
Turks. In 1856 he accepted an invitation from Burton to join
an expedition to verify the reports as to the existence of great
lakes in east central Africa, and especially to try and find Lake
Nyassa. The route to Nyassa was closed by the Arabs, and the
travellers left Zanzibar in June 1857 by a more northerly route,
which brought them by November to a place called Kaze in
Unyamwezi. Here they learnt from an Arab trader that further
inland were three great lakes—and Speke leapt to the conclusion
that the most northerly of the three would prove to be the source
of the Nile. Continuing westward in January 1858 the travelers
reached Lake Tanganyika, of which they made a partial exploration,
Speke marking on his map the mountains which close in the
lake to the north, “Mountains of the Moon.” By June they were
back at Kaze, and here Speke induced his chief, who was ill, to
allow him to attempt to reach the northern lake. Marching
north for twenty-five days, on the 30th of July Speke reached a
creek, along which he travelled till, on the 3rd of August, he saw it
open up into the waters of a lake extending northward to the
horizon. He no longer doubted that this lake—the Victoria
Nyanza—was the source of the Nile. Returning to Kazé
(August 25) he made known his discovery to Burton, who did
not believe Speke’s theories. The explorers reached Zanzibar
early in 1859, Speke hastened back to England in advance of
his comrade, and at once made public his discoveries and conclusions.
Despite the scepticism of his fellow traveller and many
geographers, he secured the support of Sir Roderick Murchison,
president of the Royal Geographical Society, under whose
direction a new expedition, expressly intended to solve the Nile
problem, was fitted out. Of this expedition Speke had the
command, his only European companion being Captain (afterwards
Colonel) J. A. Grant (q.v.). The expedition, over 200
men all told, started from Zanzibar in October 1860 and reached
Kazé on the 24th of January 1861. Despite illness and the
hostility and extortions of the natives the Victoria Nyanza
was again reached, at its south-west corner, in October 1861.
Following the western shores of the lake Speke crossed the
Kagera on the 16th of January 1862, and arrived at the capital
of Uganda on the 19th of February following. Here he was detained
by the king, Mtesa, for some months, but at last prevailed
on the chief to furnish him with guides, and on the 28th of July
Speke stood at the spot where the Nile issued from the lake. The
great discovery was made, the problem which had baffled all
previous efforts—extending over 2000 years—was solved. The
troubles of the travellers were, however, by no means over;
with difficulty they obtained permission to enter Unyoro, and
with difficulty were allowed to leave, without being permitted to
visit another large lake (the Albert Nyanza) of whose existence
and connexion with the Nile they learned. As far as possible
Speke and Grant followed the course of the Nile, and on the 3rd
of December came in touch with the outside world once more,
striking in 3° 10′ 37″ N. an outpost established at the request
of John Petherick, British consul at Khartum, who had been
charged with a mission for the relief of the explorers. On the
15th of February 1863 they arrived at Gondokoro, the Egyptian
post on the Nile marking the limit of navigability from the north.
At Gondokoro they met Sir Samuel (then Mr) Baker, generously
giving him the information which enabled him to discover the
Albert Nyanza. From Khartum Speke telegraphed to London
the great news that the Nile had been traced to its source, and
on his return to England he was received with much enthusiasm.
In the same year (1863) he published his Journal of the Discovery
of the Source of the Nile, a work full of geographical,
ethnological and zoological information, and written in a frank,
attractive style. The accuracy of his observations and the
correctness of his main deductions have been since abundantly
justified. But as Speke had not been able to follow the Nile the
whole way from the Victoria Nyanza to Gondokoro, and as the
part played in the Nile regime by the Albert Nyanza was then
unknown, Burton and others remained unconvinced, and Speke’s
conclusions were criticized in The Nile Basin (1864), a joint production
of Burton and James McQueen; it being argued in this
work that Tanganyika was the true Nile source. It was arranged
that Speke should meet Burton at the meeting of the geographical
section of the British Association at Bath on the 16th of
September and publicly debate the question of the Nile source.
On the previous afternoon Speke was out partridge shooting at
Box, near Bath. In getting over a low stone wall he laid down
his gun at half cock. Drawing the weapon towards him by the
muzzle one barrel exploded and entered his chest, inflicting a
wound from which Speke died in a few minutes. A granite
obelisk to his memory was erected by public subscription in
Kensington Gardens.
See, besides the works mentioned, Sir R. F. Burton, The Lake Regions of Central Africa (London, 1860); J. A. Grant, A Walk across Africa (London, 1864); T. D. Murray and A. S. White, Sir Samuel Baker: a Memoir (London, 1895); The Times (Sept. 17 and 19, 1864) ; Sir H. H. Johnston, The Nile Quest (London, n. d. [1903]).
SPELLING BEE, a match in which two sides contest in accuracy
of spelling. The custom, an old one, was revived in the schools
of the United States about the year 1873, and rapidly spread
