Clements Markham

Sir Clements Robert Markham (1830–1916) was a British geographer, explorer, and writer who promoted polar exploration and helped introduce the potato to India.

Connect

Robert Falcon Scott: A British Royal Navy officer who led the Discovery and Terra Nova expeditions to Antarctica. Markham championed Scott’s appointment to lead the 1901 British National Antarctic Expedition.
Discovery expedition: The 1901–1904 British National Antarctic Expedition, led by Robert Falcon Scott aboard the ship Discovery. Markham helped organize this expedition as a flagship project for British Antarctic exploration.
Royal Navy: The United Kingdom’s naval service, responsible for maritime defense and operations. Markham entered the Navy as a young man and served in the Arctic before becoming a geographer.
Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration: The period of major national Antarctic expeditions from the late nineteenth century to the early 1920s. Markham’s advocacy helped set the British expeditionary agenda during this era.
Ernest Shackleton: An Anglo-Irish Antarctic explorer who joined the Discovery expedition and later led expeditions of his own. Markham selected Shackleton for the Discovery expedition, though their relationship later deteriorated.
Potato: A starchy tuber domesticated in the Andes and cultivated worldwide as a food crop. Markham promoted its introduction to India after studying the crop’s history and cultivation.
Franklin expedition: The 1845 British expedition led by John Franklin to find the Northwest Passage, lost in the Arctic. Markham’s naval service brought him into the search for Franklin’s missing expedition.
Terra Nova expedition: The 1910–1913 British Antarctic expedition led by Robert Falcon Scott. Markham supported Scott’s later expedition, which ended in Scott’s death on the return from the South Pole.
John Murray: A Scottish oceanographer who helped lead the Challenger expedition’s scientific work and later promoted ocean research. Murray and Markham both advanced geographical science through the Royal Geographical Society.
History of the potato: The history of the potato’s domestication, spread from the Andes, and adoption as a global food crop. Markham wrote influential accounts of the potato and its transfer beyond South America.