Biography

Scottish naval officer and explorer, often referred to as Hugh Clapperton. Redheaded, six-foot tall, powerfully built, cool-headed and fun loving, Hugh Clapperton had all the trappings of an adventurer. Born in Annan, Dumfriesshire, the youngest of ten siblings, he ran away from the home of his surgeon father at age 13 and became a cabin boy aboard a merchant ship. Later press ganged onto a British man-of-war, he rose from common seaman to midshipman. During the Napoleonic Wars, he was wounded in an engagement off the Spanish coast, and at the storming of Port Louis, Mauritius, in 1810 he was first into the breach, hauling down the French flag. On another occasion, aboard the flagship of vice-admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane, fire broke out close to a large store of gunpowder. During the panic, a friend spotted him sitting quietly undisturbed at a table smoking a cigar. Coolly he explained that since no particular station had been assigned to him, 'it was therefore of no importance where he was at the time the ship blew up'. The fire was fortunately extinguished.

Volunteering for the North American campaign, Clapperton was put in command of a schooner sailing the Great Lakes. Often going ashore to hunt for fresh meat, he became friendly with the natives, grew to admire their customs and even considered marrying a tribal princess and settling there when he heard that the Admiralty had refused to confirm his lieutenant's commission. However, in 1816 it was confirmed, a decision based in part on the quality of his logbooks, which officials found were profusely illustrated with drawings and maps. Retired on half pay the following year, he returned home and in Edinburgh met a Scottish naval surgeon and botanist, Walter Oudney, whom the Colonial Office had commissioned to lead a scientific expedition to discover the course of the River Niger and establish relations with the king of Bornu (later Nigeria).

Oudney needed a companion. Clapperton immediately volunteered, a salary of 150 pound and the chance of exploring unknown and probably hostile territory was not to be missed. But the expedition got off to a sour start. An arrogant army major, Nixon Denham, using social connections, was put in charge over Oudney's head. Nevertheless in April 1822 with aid from the Pasha of Tripoli, the three explorers set off across the Sahara Desert with a caravan of camels and horse. Clapperton would often ride ahead on sorties to take navigational sights, explore geographical features, and search for geological specimens. Finally after an exhausting journey of some 2000 miles they entered the kingdom of Bornu and came to Lake Chad, the first Europeans ever to reach it. They were met by a several thousand strong cavalcade of cavalry, some wearing medieval armor, sent ahead to greet the foreigners by Sheikh Muhammad el Kanemi, the Muslim prophet who ruled Bornu in the king's name. Asked by the friendly but perhaps suspicious sheikh why they had come so far, they explained: 'to see the country merely, and to give an account of its inhabitants, produce and appearance; as our sultan was desirous of knowing every part of the globe'.

While Denham set out to circumnavigate Lake Chad, the other two headed west. On the way Dr. Oudney died of fever. Clapperton then pressed on through Hausa kingdom, an Islamic federation of city states under the rule of a caliph, Muhammad Bello. In the capital, Sokoto, he was invited to the Sultan's palace. Muhammad Bello, whose father had led the jihad that created his empire, was a cultivated man who preferred words to war, a poet and author of scholarly works. He talked about trade possibilities with Britain, of the advances of the British in India, and said he would be happy to welcome a British consul in Sokoto. The sultan drew a map (later believed false) of the Niger, but although the river was only five days march away, denied the explorer permission to proceed.

Clapperton rejoined Denham and after another grueling desert trek to Tripoli, arrived back in London in June 1825. Here Denham published his Narrative of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central Africa (1826) making little mention of his companions and taking credit for some of their discoveries. Clapperton, meanwhile, convinced that the way to the Niger was via West Africa, persuaded the Colonial Office to send him back to Sokoto. Though broken in health, he set out on HMS Brazen in August 1825, landed at Badagri and pushed inland, the three officers of his team dying of fever along the way. Reaching Sokoto, he found the Sultan at war with the Sheikh of Bornu. Denied the right to move on, and his plans to explore the Niger frustrated, Clapperton himself fell ill with malaria and dysentery. On 13 April he died in the arms of his manservant Richard Lander.

Keeping his promise to return home with Clapperton's notes and journal, Lander made his hazardous way back to England. The journal along with Lander's Records of Captain Clapperton's Last Expedition to Africa were published in 1829 and 1830. To complete his master's mission, the faithful Lander then returned to Africa that year and followed the course of the Niger to its mouth, contributing greatly to the knowledge of West African geography. B.H. Clapperton is commemorated by the genus Clappertonia Meissn.