Life and work
1863–1942
Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Francis Edward Younghusband
Across Asian frontiers, between exploration and imperial policy.
Younghusband travelled through Asia as an officer and observer in a world where a route could be a geographical discovery and a strategic question at once. His books carry both kinds of attention.
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The travel accounts restore the terrain and strategic concerns behind the better-known public career.
GREEN
In 1921, Mount Everest was still a fortress of unknown ridges, glaciers and immense altitude. Britain sent an expedition not to conquer Everest, but to discover whether a way to its summit existed at all. They returned in 1922 to make the first determined assault upon the mountain, and again in 1924 for the expedition that would become inseparable from the names of George Mallory and Andrew Irvine.
Explore the edition →Life and work
The traveller, imperial representative and later religious thinker belong to one complicated career. Its changes should not efface the force used during the British advance into Tibet.
For the journey from Manchuria and Beijing to Kashmir, including route surveys and topographical observations.
Contemporary award name; renamed the Scottish Geographical Medal in 1933.
Born into a military family in British India, he entered the army and travelled through central Asia.
The mission to Tibet in 1903–04 made his name inseparable from armed imperial intervention. He later served as president of the Royal Geographical Society and wrote increasingly about spiritual and international questions.
His travel writing combines landscape, routes and political judgement. It gives access to the concerns of a British officer moving through territories whose futures were being contested.
Younghusband’s life shows how geographical curiosity could accompany imperial power, and how a career could subsequently turn towards wider religious aspirations. The earlier and later phases both require attention.
With his brother George John: The Relief of Chitral, the joint account of the campaign of 1895.
