Experience Eric Newby’s travels online
Our extensive Collections contain over two million artefacts, archival items, books, maps, films and photographs. We preserve these for the benefit of everyone, including current researchers and future generations. We use our Collections to create educational resources and make diverse geographical histories more accessible.
Our latest online exhibition, What the traveller saw, showcases the photographs and writings of Eric Newby, whose archive was generously donated to the Society by his family. Newby, a fellow of the Society, was an internationally recognised travel writer and photographer, who received a CBE and several lifetime achievement awards for his incredible work. Our exhibition tells the story of Newby’s life in pictures. His experiences, expertly relayed in images and the written word, inspired the next generation of travel writers and photographers.
Newby’s journeys were eclectic and adventurous. Aged 18, he embarked on a 30,000-mile round-trip from Ireland to Australia, aboard a Finnish trading ship. In World War II, he was captured and spent three years in an Italian prisoner of war camp, during which time he met his future wife, Wanda Skof.
In his later years, Newby climbed a 20,000 ft glacial peak in the Hindu Kush, and sailed down the entirety of the 1,200-mile Ganges.
You can experience the full, immersive exhibition at: www.rgs.org/newby
LECTURES AVAILABLE ONLINE
As well as online exhibitions, Fellows and members can now watch live-streamed lectures every Monday evening at 6.30pm. In addition, we are opening up one lecture to the public per week from our archives, so that everyone can enjoy geography at home. Make sure you keep up to date with all the Society’s online events and activities by following #GeographyAtHome on Twitter, and checking our feed @RGS_IBG.
Watkins began his career as a photographer during the ‘Gold Rush’, discovering his photographer’s eye while temporarily minding a friend’s studio. Made famous by his ‘mammoth’ sized prints – created in the field in 1861 by using 18in by 22in (45cm by 55cm) glass plate negatives and the correspondingly large cameras required – these iconic images of the American West enabled viewers to understand the grandeur of this pristine landscape for the first time. The images were exhibited in New York at the Goupil Gallery in 1862.
It is thought that Californian Senator John Conness showed his private set of the photographic prints to Abraham Lincoln. The president was so inspired by the images that he decreed Yosemite should be preserved as a natural wilderness, creating the first national park in the United States. Watkins’ life ended in poverty and obscurity, partly as a result of the destruction of his studio and all of its contents during the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and subsequent fire; the two events conspiring to destroy the legacy of his glass plate negatives.
This image is thought to include a rare portrait of Galen Clark, the first European American to discover the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoia trees, and who is notable for his role in promoting legislation to protect it and the wider Yosemite area. He served as Guardian of Yosemite National Park for 24 years.