Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/James, Frank Linsly
JAMES, FRANK LINSLY (1851–1890), African explorer, was the eldest son of Daniel James (1800–1876), by his second wife, Mary, daughter of Thomas Hitchcock of New York. His father was a wealthy Liverpool metal merchant, who had in 1828 migrated from Albany, U.S.A. He was born at Liverpool on 21 April 1851, and in consequence of an accident in his early youth was educated at home, with the result that he acquired strong literary and artistic tastes. He entered at Caius College, Cambridge, in 1870, and afterwards proceeded to Downing, where he graduated B.A. in 1877 and M.A. in 1881. A taste for travel was first fostered in James by the delicate health of his younger brother, William, which necessitated his wintering in warm climates, and he made his first extended tour in the winter of 1877–8, when he penetrated the Soudan as far as Berber, going by the Nile and Korosko desert, and returning across the desert to Dongola. In the following winter he visited India, and was allowed by Sir Samuel Browne to join the troops under the latter's command and march up the Khyber Pass to Jellalabad. The next two winters he devoted to the successful exploration of the Basé country in the Soudan, the results of which are embodied in his ‘Wild Tribes of the Soudan,’ 1883, 8vo (2nd edit. 1884, prefaced by a chapter on the ‘Political Aspect of the Soudan’ by Sir Samuel Baker). Although largely a chronicle of merely sporting adventures, the book supplies much new geographical information respecting the Soudan. In the course of the journey James and his party made the ascent of the Tchad-Amba, a high and precipitous mountain occupied by an Abyssinian monastery, and never previously ascended by Europeans (Wild Tribes, p. 202). In the winter of 1882–3 James visited Mexico, and on 8 Dec. 1884, after some months spent in cruising along the Somali coast in an Arab dhow, he embarked at Aden for Berbera. Thence he made his way, in company with his brother and four others, into the interior of the Somali country. In spite of previous attempts on the part of Burton, Speke, Haggenmacher, and others, this region had hitherto been unexplored beyond sixty or seventy miles from the coast. James now succeeded in getting as far south as the Webbe Shebeyli River, where he found a wide fertile country which markedly contrasted with the deserts he had traversed. The remarkable feat of taking a caravan of nearly a hundred people and a hundred camels a thirteen days' journey across a waterless waste led Lord Aberdare, in his annual address to the Royal Geographical Society in 1885, to describe the expedition as one of the most interesting and difficult in all recent African travel. A representative collection of flora which was made in the course of the expedition was presented to the Kew Herbarium, while a collection of lepidoptera was presented to the natural history branch of the British Museum. A graphic account of the whole undertaking is given in ‘The Unknown Horn of Africa, an Exploration from Berbera to the Leopard River,’ written by James on his return, and published in 1888; 2nd edit. 1890.
During 1886, 1887, and 1888 James spent most of his time on his yacht, the Lancashire Witch, and visited the Persian Gulf, Spitzbergen, and Novaya Zemlya. In the spring of 1890 he ascended the Niger, and made a series of inland expeditions on the West African coast. On 21 April he landed from his anchorage off San Benito, about one hundred miles north of the Gaboon River, and within a mile of the shore was killed by an elephant which he and his friends had wounded. He was buried in Kensal Green cemetery. A home for yacht sailors was established at East Cowes as a memorial to him by his two brothers, Arthur and William Dodge James, and his personal friends. As an explorer James was distinguished by his powers of organisation and by his tact in the management of natives. In private life he was noted for extreme generosity. His literary and artistic tastes were manifested in the fine library and superb collection of eighteenth-century proof engravings which he formed at his house, 14 Great Stanhope Street, London.
[James's Works and Obituary Notice by J. A. and W. D. James, prefixed to 1890 edition of the Unknown Horn of Africa (with portrait); information kindly communicated by James Godfrey Thrupp, Esq., surgeon to the Somali expedition; Royal Geogr. Soc. Proc. vii. 265, xii. 426; Times, 29 Dec. 1888; Sat. Rev. 17 Nov. 1888.]
- Erratum: Frank James’s mother was Sophia Hall Hitchcock. Sophia's mother was Electa (Hall) Hitchcock, father John Hitchcock.
References: 1) Hitchcock, Mrs Edward;The Genealogy of the Hitchcock Family; 1894 Press of Carpenter and Morehouse, Amherst, Mass. P.29. 2) UK Death register Jan. Feb Mar. 1870 Prescott 8b. 431. 3) UK census 1851 Liverpool: Daniel James head of household, Sopia H James wife. 4) Census 1861 Frank Linsly son aged 9, Daniel's wife still Sophia.