The word “Markham ” serves, in our environment, to identify one of the most expensive private schools in Lima. Its facilities, its curricula and, above all, its prices, have made it the symbol of what the myth of the private school means as an exclusive, high-quality and projection education center. However, experience has taught us that, although it is true that people have graduated from its classrooms who have later excelled in their professional activities, it is also true that there is an immense majority that ends up developing the social and socioeconomic defects that impede our development as country free from discrimination, racial hatred and stratification based on the purchasing power of certain families. The real thing is that this word –Markham – It is, also and mainly, the last name of a researcher of English nationality, who dedicated a large part of his intellectual and scientific work to Peru, to the study of its geography. Let's learn more about who Clemente R. Markham was in life :
Limit the scope of the work of Clemente R. Markham to a single field would not do justice to the many valuable contributions to the universe of science and general knowledge made by this British geographer, botanist, explorer and writer.
The precocious interest of Clemente Markham Through the world of learning, he finds his best opportunity for fulfillment when his aunt, the Countess of Mansfield, introduces him to Rear Admiral Sir George Seymour, who offers him the opportunity to be a cadet in the Royal Navy at the young age of 14. Hereafter, Markham he would follow a brilliant career, always with that restlessness to discover, a characteristic very accentuated in his personality.
Markham he came from a family with strong clerical roots, his father being the Reverend David Markham, a descendant of William Markham, Archbishop of York. His mother, Caroline Milner, brought him into the world on July 20, 1830 in Stillingfleet, Yorkshire, England.
The same year he accepts Seymour's proposal, i.e. in 1844, Markham embarks on the Collingwood, a ship commanded by Seymour himself, and that at that time was preparing for a 4-year journey that would take him to the waters of the Pacific Ocean. In this way, the famous Englishman arrives as a teenager for the first time to the port of Valparaíso, in Chile, and shortly after that of Callao, in Peru. Of these two young South American republics, the Peruvian is the one that exerts the greatest force of attraction on the Anglo-Saxon researcher.
In 1848, back in England, his father makes him give up, at first, his attempt to dedicate himself to exploration to become a geographer; however, a traditional naval career was not what young Markham he really wanted. In these circumstances the news reaches his ears that a squadron of four ships was being arranged to go in search of a lost expedition in the Arctic.
Despite the efforts of the rescue groups, it was not possible to find the missing mission, which was commanded by Sir John Franklin. In 1851, a year after his departure, Markham he had to return to England along with the dispatched expedition. However, the idea of becoming a geographer, which had begun to germinate within Markham when he embarked on his journey to the southern part of the American continent, in 1844, he reaches his full maturity during this period. Driven by strong determination, he communicates to his father his irrevocable desire to leave the British Royal Navy despite having been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant.
The fascination that Peru had aroused in the British led him to return to Peruvian territory in 1852. Here, he went to the ancient city, once the capital of the Empire of the Incas, Cusco. For several weeks he dedicated himself to making notes in his diary on different aspects, both historical and geographical, about the region in which he was.
A year later he returns to Lima from Cusco, after short stays in Ayacucho and Arequipa. From Lima he leaves again for Great Britain upon learning of the death of his father.
In 1854, Markham he is made a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society . During this period, which lasted 25 years, the English researcher organized different expeditions, including to the Arctic to continue with his exploration work.
A Markham He is credited with having contributed in a notable way in the search for a treatment against malaria by bringing, in 1860, to India from the Peruvian Andes abundant samples of seeds of a plant called cinchona, a plant that had had positive results in combating the disease. tropical.
Thirteen years after his appointment as a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Markham obtains the position of Chief of the Geographical Department of the so-called India Office, a dependency of the British Government in charge of supervising and administering the colonial territories of Bangladesh, Burma, India, and Pakistan, all in the power of England at that time.
In 1893, Markham he is invested with the office of President of the Royal Geographical Society , the highest degree that this British institution grants. Shortly after and in recognition of his remarkable contribution to Geography, this illustrious Englishman obtained the rank of Sir, when he was awarded the title of Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath or Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath .
The indefatigable investigative spirit of this pioneer of geographical studies has been very well documented in his travel books and biographies, all written as a result of his experiences that, without place to Undoubtedly, they are an example of what scientific rigor and the humanistic essence of a very relevant character in the world of science mean.
Sir Clement Markham He died at the age of 85, in 1916, in the city of London, in his native country, England.