Speke, John Banning, African explorer, born in Somersetshire; became a soldier, and served in the Punjab; joined Burton in 1854 in an expedition into Somaliland, and three years after in an attempt to discover the sources of the Nile, and setting out alone discovered Victoria Nyanza, which he maintained was the source of the river, but which Burton questioned; on his return he published in 1863 an account of his discovery, which he was about to defend in the British Association when he was shot by the accidental discharge of his gun while he was out hunting (1827‒1864).
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Spedding, James * Spence, Joseph