William Stairs

William Grant Stairs (July 1, 1863 РJune 9, 1892) was a Canadian explorer, soldier, and adventurer. Photo of Capt. ... July 1 is the 182nd day of the year (183rd in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 183 days remaining. ... 1863 is a common year starting on Thursday. ... June 9 is the 160th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (161st in leap years), with 205 days remaining. ... 1892 was a leap year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Contents: Top - 0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z A Diogo de Azambuja (15th century Portuguese explorer of the African coast) P̻ro de Alenquer (15th century Portuguese explorer... A Norwegian soldier (a Corporal, armed with an MP-5) A soldier is a person who has enlisted with, or has been conscripted into, the armed forces of a sovereign country and has undergone training and received equipment to defend that country or its interests. ...

Born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the sixth child and third son of John Stairs and Mary Morrow, he attended school at Fort Massey Academy in Halifax, Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh, Scotland, and the Royal Military College of Canada. Halifax redirects here. ... It has been suggested that Areas of Edinburgh be merged into this article or section. ... Royal motto: Nemo me impune lacessit (Latin: No one provokes me with impunity) Scotlands location within the UK Main languages English Scots Scottish Gaelic Doric Capital Edinburgh Largest city Glasgow First Minister Jack McConnell Area  - Total  - % water Ranked 2nd UK 78,782 km² 1. ... The Royal Military College of Canada (RMC), located in Kingston, Ontario, is the military academy of the Canadian Forces. ...

After graduating as a trained engineer, Stairs spent three years working for the New Zealand Trigonometrical Survey in northern New Zealand. In 1885, he accepted the offer of a commission in the British Royal Engineers and trained in Chatham, England. An engineer is someone who practices the engineering profession; a professional practitioner of engineering; someone who uses scientific knowledge to solve practical problems and produce goods for society. ... 1885 is a common year starting on Thursday. ... In military organizations, a commissioned officer is a member of the service who derives authority directly from a sovereign power, and as such holds a commission from that power. ... The Corps of Royal Engineers (RE), commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army. ... Location within the British Isles Chatham is an English town that developed around an important naval dockyard on the east bank of the River Medway in the county of Kent. ... Royal motto: Dieu et mon droit (French: God and my right) Englands location within the UK Official language English de facto Capital London de facto Largest city London Area  - Total Ranked 1st UK 130,395 km² Population  - Total (2001)  - Density Ranked 1st UK 49,138,831 377/km² Ethnicity...

In the tradition of the great Victorian era explorers, on his first mission Capt. Stairs distinguished himself as an officer, in the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition, headed by Henry Morton Stanley. Queen Victoria (shown here on the morning of her Accession to the Throne, June 20, 1837) gave her name to the historic era. ... The Emin Pasha Relief Expedition of 1886 to 1889 was the last major European expedition into the interior of Africa in the 19th century, ostensibly to the relief of Emin Pasha, General Charles Gordons besieged governor of Equatoria, threatened by Mahdist forces. ... Henry Morton Stanley - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ...

During two of his three-year journeys across Africa, Stairs discovered one source of the Nile, the Semliki River, and became the first non-African to ever climb in the Ruwenzoris. In the midst of the first three thousand mile trans-African trek he was seriously wounded in the chest by a poisonous arrow during an attack by warring natives. He would recover from his wound to continue the journey. In Dublin, Ireland there is a bronze plaque depicting this August 13, 1887 event on the statue of expedition Surgeon Major Thomas Heazle Parke who removed the arrow and sucked the poison from the wound. Africa is the worlds second-largest continent and second most populous. ... The Nile in Egypt Length 6 695 km Elevation of the source 1 134 m Average discharge 2 830 m³/s Area watershed 3 400 000 km² Origin  Africa Mouth  the Mediterranean Basin countries Uganda - Sudan - Egypt The Nile (Arabic: النيل an-nÄ«l), in Africa, is one of the two... The Ruwenzori Range is a small mountain range of central Africa, often referred to as Mt. ... This article is about the city in Ireland. ... August 13 is the 225th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (226th in leap years), with 140 days remaining. ... 1887 is a common year starting on Saturday (click on link for calendar). ...

Lauded in Europe and North America for his heroic exploits, on his return to England Capt. Stairs was named a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Scottish Geographical Society in 1890. In 1891 he transferred to the Royal Welsh Regiment and was then asked by King Leopold II of Belgium to command a mission to take control of the African copper lands of Katanga. The Royal Geographical Society is a learned society, founded in 1830 with the name Geographical Society of London for the advancement of geographical science, under the patronage of King William IV. It absorbed the Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa (founded by Joseph Banks in... 1890 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... 1891 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... King Leopold II His Majesty King Leopold II of the Belgians (Louis Philippe Marie Victor) (April 9, 1835–December 17, 1909), succeeded his father, Leopold I of Belgium, to the Belgian throne in 1865 and remained king until his death. ... Capital Lubumbashi Created June 1960 Dissolved January 1963 Demonym Katangan Katanga is the southern province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, regional capital Lubumbashi (formerly Elizabethville). ...

After leading this successful expedition, Capt. Stairs began planning for another mission into the African continent. However, in 1892, a few weeks shy of his twenty-ninth birthday, and suffering from recurring bouts of malaria, he passed away at Chinde, Mozambique. Red blood cell infected with Malaria (Italian: bad air; formerly called ague or marsh fever in English) is an infectious disease which in humans causes about 350-500 million infections and approxomately 1. ... Chinde, Mozambique is a town of Portuguese East Africa, chief port for the Zambezi valley. ...

Upon his passing, memorials were erected at the Royal Military College of Canada and St. George's Cathedral in Kingston, Ontario and in Rochester Cathedral near Chatham, England. A collection of artifacts from his African expeditions are at the McCord Museum, Montreal, Quebec and his diaries are preserved in the Public Archives of Nova Scotia. Kingston, Ontario, with a population of approximately 146,8381 people, is located in the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor at the eastern end of Lake Ontario, where the lake runs into the St. ... Rochester Cathedral is a Norman church in Rochester, Kent. ... The McCord Museum (in French, Musée McCord) is a public research and teaching museum dedicated to the preservation, study, diffusion, and appreciation of Canadian history. ... For more details on this topic, see History of Montreal. ...

His missions are detailed in books, two of which contain Stairs' diaries compiled during the two major expeditions:

• 1) "African Exploits", (1998) by the Hon. Roy MacLaren, historian and former International Trade Minister of the Government of Canada.
• 2) "Victorian Explorer", (1997) by Professor Jane M. Konczacki.
• 3) "With Captain Stairs to Katanga", (1893) by Joseph Augustus Moloney, S. Low, Marston & Company, London, England (an original at the American Museum of Natural History)

The detailed personal diaries of Capt. Stairs of the day-to-day events during these two major expeditions in the quest to explore the "dark continent" portrays a chilling story of battles with slave trade operators and cannibals, the threat of disease and starvation, and the daunting challenge in leading a caravan of several thousand men through the unforgiving jungles and dangerous rivers of a vast and hitherto little known land. 1998 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... Roy MacLaren (born October 26, 1934), is a Canadian politician, diplomat, historian, and author. ... 1997 is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1893 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... The American Museum of Natural History is a landmark of Manhattans Upper West Side in New York, at 79th Street and Central Park West. ...

Captain Stairs is buried in the European Cemetery in Chinde, Mozambique at the mouth of the Zambezi River. Zambezi River in North Western Zambia The Zambezi (also spelled Zambesi) is a river in Southern Africa. ...

Further reading

• Merchant Princes, Halifax's First Family of Finance, Ships and Steel by James Frost, (James Lorimer and Company, 2003)