Brief History of the Royal Geographical Society
The Royal Geographical Society is located near the VAM Victoria and Albert Museum, around the Kensington neighborhood. It is almost next to the Natural Museum of History and the Museum of Science. At the entrance, there are two big statues: one of Shackleton and another one of Livingston. That corner is famously known by the locals as the Hot and Cold corner If you are taking a "cabbie" to get there you now know what to say.The Royal Geographical Society was founded in 1830 with the mission of promoting science and geography and the natural sciences. Back then geography was not a discipline in its own, rather it was a part of the natural sciences discipline. The RGS's mission was to send explorers to gather data, by journaling their travels then they would return with this data so the geographical society could create the maps and publish journals to be shared with other societies globally.
About the Collections
We were greeted by the archivist in charge and directed towards the Foyle Reading Room. We sat at a table in which there were artifacts that belonged to Shackleton, Livingston, and Mallory. For example, there was a boot and a watch on display which belonged to Mallory and it was recovered together with his remains on the Everest.The archivist gave us an overview of the types of collections they house. He lectured us on the top three most important expeditions that were funded by this institution, agencies, and benefactors, to explore Central Africa, the source of Nile River, Antartica and Mount Everest.
The RGS has built over the years a collection of 2 million items, which comprises survey instruments, which circulated successfully, so explorers used these in their expeditons. One million of these items are maps, pictures, and fifty thousand books and 300 thousand periodicals. The society trained people on how to use survey instruments. These are still preserved.
The circulation of these items was recorded on big ledgers. There are also important correspondence from explorers and planning papers related to various expedition projects such as the one from Mt. Everest. The archivist explained to us the explorers' journeys to the discovery of central Africa, the source of the Nile River, Antartica and the Mt. Everest.
The archive center reopened on 2004 to make accessible the collections. They still use card catalogues, but also have an electronic catalog and an image collection, which continue to be updated. Also, new storage areas are in construction to preserve delicate items.
Exhibits, community outreachYou can buy prints from expeditions to Mt Everest, Antartica, or Africa online at https://www.rgsprintstore.com/
References:
Image Library. https://www.rgs.org/about/our-collections/image-library/
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