Wilfred Thesiger

Sir Wilfred Thesiger
Born	Wilfred Patrick Thesiger (1910-06-03)3 June 1910 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Died	24 August 2003(2003-08-24) (aged 93) Croydon, London, England, UK
Nationality	English
Alma mater	Magdalen College, Oxford
Known for	Exploration, Writing, Photography
Notable work	Arabian Sands The Marsh Arabs
Military career
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Service/branch	British Army
Years of service	1940-1943
Rank	Major
Unit	Sudan Defence Force Gideon Force Special Air Service
Battles/wars	World War II

Major Sir Wilfred Patrick Thesiger, CBE, DSO, FRAS, FRGS, also called Mubarak bin London (Arabic for "the blessed one from London")^[1][2] (3 June 1910 – 24 August 2003)^[3]was a British explorer and travel writer.

Thesiger is best known for his travel books Arabian Sands (1959), on his foot and camel crossing of the Empty Quarter of Arabia, and The Marsh Arabs (1964), on his time living in the marshes of Iraq with the Marsh Arabs. He donated his collection of 38,000 travel photographs to the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford.

Early life

Thesiger was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia,^[4] the son of diplomat Wilfred Gilbert Thesiger, British consul-general and minister to Addis Ababa from 1909 to 1919. Thesiger's grandfather was Lord Chelmsford. Viscount Chelmsford, future Viceroy of India was an uncle, and the actor Ernest Thesiger was a cousin.

Thesiger was educated at Eton College followed by Magdalen College Oxford,^[5] where he took a Third in History. Between 1930 and 1933, Thesiger represented Oxford at boxing and later (in 1933) became captain of the Oxford boxing team.^[6]He was awarded a boxing Blue for each of the four years that he was at Oxford. Whilst at Oxford, Thesiger was also elected Treasurer of the Oxford University Exploration Club (1931–32).

Career

Wilfred Thesiger with the British Delegation in Addis Ababa in 1930

Thesiger in the Horn of Africa in 1934

In 1930, Thesiger returned to Africa, having received a personal invitation from Emperor Haile Selassie to attend his coronation. He returned again in 1933 as the leader of an expedition, funded in part by the Royal Geographical Society, to explore the course of the Awash River. During this expedition, he became the first European to enter the Aussa Sultanate and visit Lake Abbe.

Between 1935 and 1940, Thesiger served with the Sudan Political Service stationed in Darfur and the Upper Nile.

Second World War

At the outbreak of war, Thesiger joined the Sudan Defence Force, helping to organise the Abyssinian resistance to the occupying Italians. He was awarded the DSO^[7] for capturing Agibar and its garrison of 2,500 Italian soldiers.

He later served with the Special Operations Executive in Syria and the Special Air Service during the North African Campaign, attaining the rank of Major. From 1943 to 1945 he acted as political adviser to the Abyssinian Crown Prince.

Travels

After the Second World War, Thesiger travelled across Arabia, lived for some years in the marshes of Iraq, and then travelled in Iran, Kurdistan, French West Africa and Pakistan. He lived for many years in northern Kenya.^[8]

He is best remembered for his Arabian expeditions. In 1945, an entomologist, O.B. Lean, acting on behalf of the Middle East Anti Locust Unit (MEALU), hired Thesiger to search for locust breeding grounds in southern Arabia. This led to two crossings of the great Arabian desert, the Rub al Khali or Empty Quarter, and travels in inner Oman. He rode camels in the company of Bedu guides through remote areas that were potentially dangerous on account of tribal tensions and the opposition of local rulers to the presence of foreigners.^[9]

Thesiger's first crossing began in October 1946 when, with his bedouin companions, he left Salalah in the Dhofar province of Oman and travelled to the Mughshin Oasis. From there, he entered the sands but there was dissent among his party, some of whom were unwilling to travel any farther. Thesiger continued with four members, two from the Rashid and two from the Bait Kathir tribes. He reached the Liwa Oasis in Abu Dhabi in mid December, visited Abu Dhabi town then crossed into Oman, heading back towards Salalah via Dhofar and ending his journey at Salalah on 23 February 1947.^[10]

His second crossing began in December 1947, at Manwakh well in Yemen. The king of Saudi Arabia did not agree to Thesiger entering his territory, and imprisoned Thesiger and his party when they arrived at Sulayil. Soon released, they travelled to the Liwa Oasis and then to Abu Dhabi town, arriving on 14 March 1948. In April, Thesiger visited the Buraimi Oasis, for which the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC) held an oil concession, which it operated through an associate company, Petroleum Development Oman. Dick Bird, the company's representative, was concerned by Thesiger's attitude towards oil exploration. Thesiger disapproved of the company’s activities, believing that the discovery of oil would destroy the bedouin way of life. However, the need to finance his expeditions led the explorer to accept funding from the oil company in exchange for providing information garnered from his travels.^[9][10]

After all his travels were over, Thesiger returned to England in the 1990s and was knighted in 1995.^[8]

He is known for two travel books: Arabian Sands (1959), which recounts his travels in the Empty Quarter of Arabia between 1945 and 1950 and describes the vanishing way of life of the Bedu; and The Marsh Arabs (1964), which is an account of the Madan, the indigenous people of the marshlands of southern Iraq. The latter journey is also covered by his travelling companion, Gavin Maxwell, in A Reed Shaken by the Wind – a Journey through the Unexplored Marshlands of Iraq (Longman, 1959).

Thesiger took many photographs during his travels and donated his vast collection of 38,000 negatives to the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford.^[11] His books were analysed, from a collector's point of view, in Book and Magazine Collector magazine, No.65, August 1989, and again in 2008, Issue No.295.

Awards

• Master of Arts, MA, Oxon
• Third Class Star of Ethiopia 1930
• Companion of the Distinguished Service Order, DSO 1941
• Founder's Medal, Royal Geographical Society, RGS 1948
• Lawrence of Arabia Medal, Royal Central Asian Society, RCAS 1955
• Livingstone Medal, Royal Scottish Geographical Society, RSGS 1962
• W.H.Heinemann Award 1964
• Royal Society of Literature, RSL 1965
• Burton Memorial Medal, Royal Asiatic Society, RAS 1966
• Honorary Dlitt Leicester 1967
• Commander of the Order of the British Empire, CBE 1968
• Fellow Royal Society of Literature, FRSL 1982
• Honorary Fellow British Academy, FBA 1982;
• Honorary DLitt, University of Bath, 1992^[12]

Books

• Arabian Sands (1959) travel writing classic
  • 1985 Penguin; ISBN 0-14-009514-4
• The Marsh Arabs (1964)
  • 2007 Penguin; ISBN 0-14-144208-5, ISBN 978-0-14-144208-2
• The Last Nomad (1979)
  • 1980 – William Collins; ISBN 0-525-93077-9
• The Life of My Choice (1987)
  • 1987 Harpercollins;. ISBN 0-00-637267-8
• Visions of a Nomad (1987)
  • 1987 Collins; ISBN 0-00-217729-3
• My Kenya Days Harper Collins, 1994; ISBN 0-00-255268-X
• The Danakil Diary: Journeys through Abyssinia, 1930-34 Hammersmith, 1996, ISBN 0-00-638775-6. Contains the diaries he wrote in 1930 when he attended Haille Selassie's coronation, and in 1933-1935 when he explored the Awash valley and encountered the Afar people. Interspersed with letters he wrote to his mother during that period.
• Among the Mountains: Travels Through Asia Harper Collins, (1998); ISBN 0-00-255898-X. This account presents edited portions of journal entries written during trips to remote mountain areas of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Kurdistan between 1952 and 1965, as well as numerous black-and-white photographs that he took at the time. There is little detail since the book is based on his diary entries. For a better account, read The Life of My Choice.
• Crossing the Sands Motivate Pub Ltd (2000) 176 pp; ISBN 1-86063-028-6. About his journeys in the Empty Quarter and the Arabian Peninsula during the late forties, with photographs.
• My Life and Travels (anthology)
  • 2002 HarperCollins 352 pp;ISBN 0-00-257151-X
  • 2003 Flamingo 320 pp; ISBN 0-00-655212-9
• A Vanished World
  • 2001 W.W. Norton 192 pp; ISBN 0-00-710837-0
  • 2002 W.W. Norton 189 pp, possibly the same as above, collection of photographs; ISBN 0-393-05086-6

Reputation

Thesiger's reputation in England was built on his travels, writings and military service. Those who met him found him traditional and old fashioned. Among the Arabian people, his reputation was based on their personal knowledge of him as an adventurer. Salim bin Ghabaisha described him, fifty years after their travels together, as "loyal, generous, and afraid of nothing".^[13]

In popular culture

In the film version of Gavin Maxwell's Ring of Bright Water, Bill Travers uses a copy of Thesiger's The Marsh Arabs to covertly spy on his soon-to-be close companion, Mijbil the otter.

In 2008, Majid Abdulrazak (a film director from the United Arab Emirates) produced a film version of Arabian Sands which was self-funded and employed actors from the UAE and Oman in most of the major roles.

A documentary about Sir Wilfred was made by producer Les Guthman in 1999, "A Life of My Choice."^[14]

In Eric Newby's A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, the closing pages recount Newby and his companion meeting Thesiger. Newby was suffering from dysentery, extreme fatigue and other ailments. The final sentence of the book is of Thesiger's watching them inflate their air beds saying "God, you must be a couple of pansies."

References

Sources

External links

Photographs by Thesiger

• Collection of Thesiger's photography in Pitt Rivers Museum

Obituaries and Profiles (mostly August 2003)

• Daily Telegraph obituary
• Review of maitland's official biography discusses various aspects of the explorer's life and characters.
• BBC obituary (26 August 2003) contains errors such as Wilfred being the youngest son, which he was not.
• Profile by Jonathan Glancy in The Guardian
• Eric Newby's recollections of Thesiger
• Frank Gardner (journalist), the BBC's Security Correspondent, recalls personal memories of the great explorer including inspiring Gardner to learn Arabic.