William Winwood Reade (1838 - 1875) was an English historian, explorer, and philosopher. Image File history File links Size of this preview: 480 × 600 pixelsFull resolution (865 × 1081 pixel, file size: 226 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) Illustration of explorer/philosopher W. Winwood Reade in Angola, 1863. ... | Jöns Jakob Berzelius, discoverer of protein 1838 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... 1875 (MDCCCLXXV) was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ...

Born to a squire in Perthshire, Reade took to writing at an early age, composing two novels by the age of 23. At this age he also decided to depart for Africa, arriving in Gabon by steamboat in 1862. After several months of observing gorillas and traveling down through Angola, Reade returned home and published his first travel account, Savage Africa. Despite what critics have called an often juvenile tone, the book is notable for its anthropological inquiries. Perthshire (Siorrachd Pheairt in Gaelic) was a county in central Scotland, which extended from Strathmore in the east, to the Pass of Drumochter in the north, Rannoch Moor and Ben Lui in the west, and Aberfoyle in the south. ... Type species Troglodytes gorilla Savage, 1847 distribution of Gorilla Species Gorilla gorilla Gorilla beringei The gorilla, the largest of the living primates, is a ground-dwelling omnivore that inhabits the forests of Africa. ... Anthropology (from Greek: ἀνθρωπος, anthropos, human being; and λόγος, logos, knowledge) is the study of humanity. ...

In 1868, Reade secured the patronage of London-based Gold Coast trader Andrew Swanzy to journey to West Africa. After failing to get permission to enter the Ashanti Confederacy, Reade set out north from Freetown to explore the areas past the Solimana capital of Falaba. Though Reade traveled over some unexplored territory, his findings excited little interest among geographers, due mostly to his failure to take accurate measurements of his journey; his sextant and other instruments had been left behind at Port Loko. On his return, Reade published his African Sketch-Book (1873), an account of his travels that also called for far greater British involvement in West Africa. This article is about the capital of England and the United Kingdom. ... Flag of Gold Coast Map from 1896 of the British Gold Coast Colony. ...  Western Africa (UN subregion)  Maghreb[1] West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. ... A shrunken Ashanti Confederacy near the end of its existence in 1896 The Ashanti Kingdom or Confederacy was a powerful state in West Africa in the years prior to European colonization. ... Freetown, population 1,070,200 (2004), is the capital and largest city of Sierra Leone. ... Solimana was a minor West African state of the nineteenth century. ... Falaba Falaba was a large town in Koinadugu District, northern Sierra Leone, Africa. ... A sextant is a measuring instrument generally used to measure the angle of elevation of a celestial object above the horizon. ... Port Loko is a city in northwestern Sierra Leone in the Port Loko District of Northern Province. ...

His best-known work, however, is The Martyrdom of Man (1872), a secular history of the Western world. In it, Reade attempts to trace the development of Western civilization in terms analogous to those used in the natural sciences. He uses it to advance his philosophy, which was secular humanism. He attacks traditional religion and morality. Reade was an atheist and a social Darwinist and believed in survival of the fittest. He wanted to create a new civilization. Cecil Rhodes, an English-born South Africa politician and businessman, said that the book "made me what I am". The title of the book is well known to many who have not read it: in A. Conan Doyle's The Sign of the Four Sherlock Holmes says to Watson: "Let me recommend this book, -- one of the most remarkable ever penned." Secular humanism is a humanist philosophy that upholds reason, ethics, and justice, and specifically rejects the supernatural and the spiritual as warrants of moral reflection and decision-making. ... For information about the band, see Atheist (band). ... Social Darwinism is a descriptive term given to a kind of social theory that draws an association between Darwins theory of evolution by natural selection, and the sociological relations of humanity. ... Cecil Rhodes Cecil John Rhodes, PC, DCL, (July 5, 1853 – March 26, 1902[1]) was a British-born South African businessman, mining magnate, and politician. ...

Reade returned to Africa in 1873 to serve as a correspondent in the Ashanti War, but died not long after. He was buried in Ipsden churchyard, Oxfordshire. The Ashanti, or Asante, are a major ethnic group in Ghana. ... Oxfordshire (abbreviated Oxon, from the Latinised form Oxonia) is a county in the South East of England, bordering on Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, and Warwickshire. ...

References

• Hargreaves, J.D. "Winwood Reade and the Discovery of Africa." African Affairs 56.225 (Oct 1957): 306-316.

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

William Winwood Reade

• The Martyrdom of Man description and downloads
• Winwood Reade's "The Martyrdom of Man": The Boys' Book of All Knowledge? Lincoln Allison, University of Warwick
• Winwood Reade: The Literary Explorer The active life: the explorer as biographical subject, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography