Logo

Perceval Landon (1869-1927) was a barriste as well as a versatile writer and journalist. He wrote only a couple of supernatural short stories, collected in Raw Edges (1908), but one of these "Thurnley Abbey" is very highly thought-of, and often anthologized. He was special correspondent for the Times in the Boer Waar; he afterwards served as special correspondent on many assignments, including the British expedition to Tibet, for the times, the Daily Mail, and the Daily Telegraph.

Sir Henry (Harry) Hamilton Johnston, G.C.M.G., K.C.B., Her Majesty Queen Victoria’s first Commissioner and Consul General to British Central Africa, was born on June 12, s1858 at London. As a student at Kings College, he excelled in languages and art. He spoke over 30 African languages with varying degrees of fluency, in addition to Arabic, Italian, Spanish, French and Portuguese. He discovered and thoroughly documented more than 100 new birds, reptiles, mammals and insects. Johnston wrote over 60 books, including “Great Epics” such as The River Congo (Lon: Sampson et al 1884), The Kilema-Nzaro Expedition (Lon: Kegan Paul 1886), British Central Africa (Lon: Methuen 1897), The Uganda Protectorate (2 Vol.) (Lon: Hutcinson 1902), Liberia (2 Vol.) (Lon: Hutchinson (1906) and George Grenfell and The Congo (2 Vol. (Lon: Hutchinson (1908). He also published over 600 monographs, articles and contributions of note.

John Thomson FRGS (1837-1921), who was also a member of PSS, travelled with his camera in Africa and Photographed London street life. His work has featured in exhibitions in the 1990s at National Library of Scotland and Royal Scottish Academy - Light from the Dark Room. But at no time did he run a professional photography business in Edinburgh.