33-474: William Stairs is the name of: William Grant Stairs (1863–1892), Canadian-British soldier and explorer of Africa William James Stairs (1819–1906), Canadian merchant, banker, politician William J. Stairs (born 1956), Canadian political consultant William Machin Stairs (1789–1865), Canadian merchant, banker and statesman [REDACTED] Topics referred to by
66-608: A range of mountains in eastern equatorial Africa, located on the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo . The highest peak of the Ruwenzori reaches 5,109 metres (16,762 ft), and the range's upper regions are permanently snow-capped and glaciated . Rivers fed by mountain streams form one of the sources of the Nile . Because of this, European explorers linked
99-540: A 6 metres (20 ft) tall heather covered in moss that lives on one of its peaks. Most of the range is now a World Heritage Site and is covered jointly by Rwenzori Mountains National Park in southwestern Uganda and the Virunga National Park in the eastern Congo. There is no water shortage in the Ruwenzori; yet, several members of the afro-alpine family resemble species that normally thrive in desert climates. The reason lies in their similar water economy. Water
132-676: A steamer down the lower Zambezi he had another attack of malaria which killed him on 9 June 1892. He is buried in the European Cemetery in Chinde , Mozambique at the mouth of the Zambezi River . Only 189 of the 400 men on the expedition made it back to Zanzibar, a year after they had left, most of the rest died and few deserted. Katanga became part of the Congo Free State, which was annexed by Belgium in 1908 after an international outcry over
165-469: A total area of 7.5 square kilometres (2.9 sq mi), about half the total glacier area in Africa. By 2005, less than half of these were still present, on only three mountains, with an area of about 1.5 square kilometres (0.58 sq mi). Recent scientific studies, such as those by Richard Taylor of University College London , have attributed this retreat to global climate change and have investigated
198-751: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages William Grant Stairs William Grant Stairs (1 July 1863 – 9 June 1892) was a Canadian-British explorer , soldier, and adventurer who had a leading role in two of the most controversial expeditions in the Scramble for Africa . Born in Halifax , Nova Scotia , the sixth child and third son of John Stairs and Mary Morrow, he attended school at Fort Massey Academy in Halifax, Merchiston Castle School in Edinburgh , Scotland , and
231-424: Is not always readily available to the afroalpine plants when they need it. In addition, nightly frosts affect the sap transport in the plants and the intake of water by its roots. As the day begins, the air temperature and radiation level rise rapidly, putting strenuous demands on the exposed parts of the plants as they try to meet the transpiration demands of the leaves and maintain a proper water balance. To counter
264-559: The Public Archives of Nova Scotia ; others are lost. Stairs Island, Parry Sound, Ontario was named in his honour. Both Stairs Street and Stairs Place in Halifax, Nova Scotia, bear his name. The memorial in St. George's Cathedral, Kingston, was destroyed in the fire in 1899, and has not been replaced. Rwenzori Mountains The Ruwenzori , also spelled Rwenzori and Rwenjura , or Rwenzururu ( Swahili : Milima ya Ruwenzori ) are
297-766: The Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario , as Student #52. After graduating as a trained engineer, Stairs spent three years working for the New Zealand Trigonometrical Survey in northern New Zealand. In 1885, he accepted the offer of a commission in the British Royal Engineers and trained in Chatham , England. In 1891 he transferred to the Welsh Regiment . Captain Stairs
330-463: The Ruwenzoris , reaching 10,677 ft before having to turn around. He was seriously wounded in the chest by a poisonous arrow during an attack by natives. Stairs recovered from his wound to continue the journey. In Dublin , Ireland there is a bronze plaque depicting this 13 August 1887 event on the statue of expedition Surgeon Major Thomas Heazle Parke who removed the arrow and sucked the poison from
363-535: The Garanganze people say that the expedition kept Msiri's head – by some accounts in a can of kerosene – but it cursed and killed everyone who carried it and eventually, this included Stairs. He was ill with malaria throughout January 1892. After being relieved by another expedition, the Stairs Expedition set out on the long return journey to Zanzibar. Stairs was frequently sick but by May 1892 had recovered. On
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#1732856128223396-429: The Garanganze were massacred by the expedition's askaris , and most of the rest fled into the bush. Stairs handed over Msiri's body to his two brothers and an adopted son, Makanda Bantu, whom Stairs installed as chief to replace Msiri, and who signed the treaty acknowledging Leopold as sovereign. The two brothers refused to do so until Stairs sent Moloney to threaten them with the same fate as Msiri. Oral histories of
429-639: The Ruwenzori with the legendary Mountains of the Moon , claimed by the Greek scholar Ptolemy as the source of the Nile. Virunga National Park in eastern DR Congo and Rwenzori Mountains National Park in southwestern Uganda are located within the range. The mountains formed about three million years ago in the late Pliocene epoch and are the result of an uplifted block of crystalline rocks including gneiss , amphibolite , granite and quartzite . The Rwenzori mountains are
462-647: The Rwenzori Mountains hosted the bases of the National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (NALU) and the "Partie de Liberation Congolaise" (PLC), an anti- Mobutu rebel group. In the early 1990s, a Congolese rebel group known as the National Council of Resistance for Democracy ( Conseil National de Résistance pour la Démocratie , CNRD) led by André Kisase Ngandu began to wage an insurgency against Mobutu from
495-741: The Rwenzori Mountains. Militias aligned with the old Rwenzururu movement's ideology occupied the Rwenzori Mountains from 1997 to June 2001. In 2020, after being defeated across the border by the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo , some elements of the Allied Democratic Forces moved into the Rwenzori Mountains. The Ruwenzori are known for their vegetation, ranging from tropical rainforest through alpine meadows to snow. The range supports its own species and varieties of giant groundsel and giant lobelia and even has
528-487: The alpine zone (3,500 to 4,500 metres (11,500 to 14,800 ft)); and, the nival zone (4,400 to 5,000 metres (14,400 to 16,400 ft)). At higher elevations, some plants reach an unusually large size, such as lobelia and groundsels. The vegetation in the Ruwenzori is unique to equatorial alpine Africa. Sources: An ongoing concern is the impact of climate change on the Ruwenzori's glaciers. In 1906, forty-three named glaciers were distributed over six mountains with
561-512: The effects of freezing, the afro-alpine plants have developed the insulation systems that give them such a striking appearance. These adaptations become more prominent as the elevation increases. There are five overlapping vegetation zones in the Ruwenzori: the evergreen forest zone (up to 2,800 metres (9,200 ft)); the bamboo zone (2,800 to 3,300 metres (9,200 to 10,800 ft)); the heather zone (3,000 to 3,800 metres (9,800 to 12,500 ft));
594-737: The highest non-volcanic, non- orogenic mountains in the world. This uplift divided the paleolake Obweruka and created three of the present-day African Great Lakes : Lake Albert , Lake Edward , and Lake George . The range is about 120 kilometres (75 mi) long and 65 kilometres (40 mi) wide. It consists of six massifs separated by deep gorges: Mount Stanley (5,109 metres (16,762 ft)), Mount Speke (4,890 metres (16,040 ft)), Mount Baker (4,843 metres (15,889 ft)), Mount Emin (4,798 metres (15,741 ft)), Mount Gessi (4,715 metres (15,469 ft)) and Mount Luigi di Savoia (4,627 metres (15,180 ft)). Mount Stanley has several subsidiary summits, with Margherita Peak being
627-485: The highest point. The mountains are occasionally identified with the legendary " Mountains of the Moon ", described in antiquity as the source of the Nile River . Modern European explorers observed the range beginning in the late nineteenth century, with Samuel Baker reporting what he called the "Blue Mountains" looming in the distance in 1864, and Henry M. Stanley visiting the range in 1875 and 1888, when he recorded
660-434: The impact of this change on the mountain's vegetation and biodiversity . In 2012, 2020 and 2022; Klaus Thymann led an expedition with the environmental charity Project Pressure creating comparative photographs to visually document the glacier recession, the findings were published in global media including BBC One Planet, The Guardian and Yale Environment 360 . The alteration can be seen in comparative images. As
693-840: The killings, brutality and slavery by Leopold's regime. In the early 20th century as Katanga's mining industries developed, some British in Northern Rhodesia , representing the losers in the scramble for Katanga, thought of Stairs as a mercenary and traitor to the British Empire . Captain Stairs is commemorated with three identical tablets (c. 1902) in the vestibule of Mackenzie Building at Royal Military College of Canada , St. George's Cathedral (Kingston, Ontario) and in Rochester Cathedral near Chatham , England. A collection of artefacts from his African expeditions are at Fort Frederick (Kingston) and some his diaries are preserved in
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#1732856128223726-726: The mountains in the 1960s. In course of the Ugandan Bush War , the Rwenzururu movement reemerged and continued its struggle until signing a peace deal with Ugandan President Milton Obote 's government. In the Bush War's later stages, the National Resistance Army (NRA) rebel force operated in the mountains. After the NRA seized power in Uganda in 1986, another civil war broke out. This time,
759-659: The mountains. His photographs of the glaciers and moraines of the Ruwenzori demonstrated that the glaciers were already in retreat. Sella's photographic work is conserved at the Museo Nazionale della Montagna in Turin and at the Istituto di Fotografia Alpina Vittorio Sella in Biella , both in Italy. The Makerere University , Uganda, also has a selection of his images. The first traverse of
792-452: The name as "Ruwenzori". In 1906, the Duke of Abruzzi mounted an expedition to the Ruwenzori, the account of which was subsequently published by Filippo De Filippi . The expedition scaled the highest peaks of the range, several of which were named by the duke, while Mount Luigi di Savoia was named in his honour. Accompanying the duke was photographer Vittorio Sella , who had previously visited
825-407: The same term This disambiguation page lists articles about people with the same name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Stairs&oldid=401958446 " Category : Human name disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
858-473: The six massifs of the Ruwenzori was done in 1975, starting on 27 January and ending on 13 February. The traverse was done by Polish climbers Janusz Chalecki, Stanisław Cholewa and Leszek S. Czarnecki , with Mirosław Kuraś accompanying them on the last half of the traverse. Since Uganda's independence from the British Empire , the Rwenzori Mountains have repeatedly become sanctuaries to rebel groups. The secessionist Rwenzururu movement fought an insurgency in
891-469: The south, which had already sent two failed expeditions to Msiri. Stairs and Joseph Moloney , the expedition's British medical officer, were aware that they could potentially come into armed conflict with a British expedition, and agreed they would nevertheless discharge their duties to their employer, Leopold. The Stairs Expedition became notorious for the fate of Msiri. After three days of negotiations without progress, Stairs gave Msiri an ultimatum to sign
924-469: The treaty the next day, 20 December 1891. When Msiri did not appear, he sent his second-in-command, Captain Bodson to arrest Msiri, who stood his ground. Bodson shot him dead, and a fight broke out. The expedition took their wounded and Msiri's body back to their camp where Stairs was waiting, and there they cut off Msiri's head and hoisted it on a pole in plain view as a 'barbaric lesson' to his people. Some of
957-603: The wound. The expedition was lauded in Europe and North America for exploits seen as heroic. On his return to England Captain Stairs was named a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Scottish Geographical Society in 1890. He described the population as "unfortunate blacks who, very often, are incapable of managing their own affairs." In 1891 on Stanley's recommendation, Stairs
990-498: Was a military mission of 400 men under the Congo Free State flag, armed with 200 modern rifles. (Msiri's men had muzzle-loading muskets). Stairs ran a well-organised expedition and won the loyalty of his officers and chiefs ( Zanzibari supervisors). It was smaller and lighter than his previous expedition, with only two other military officers. They were in a race against Cecil Rhodes ' British South Africa Company expanding from
1023-400: Was appointed by King Leopold II of Belgium to command a mission to take Katanga also known as Garanganze with or without the consent of its powerful king, Msiri . Leopold had used Stanley's services before and agreed with his use of force and understood Stairs to be in the same mould, and he had a reputation for carrying out orders completely and without hesitation. The Stairs Expedition
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1056-701: Was appointed to the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition led by Henry Morton Stanley , at the time the most celebrated living explorer of Africa. Stairs sailed from London on 20 January 1887 and met Stanley in Suez on 6 February. Their expedition started from Banana at the mouth of the Congo River on 19 March and ended in Bagamoyo , Tanzania on 5 December 1889. Stairs was appointed second-in-command after Captain Barttelot
1089-465: Was shot on 19 July 1888. During the 5000 km journey across Africa through some of its most difficult country consisting of almost impenetrable rainforest and swamps, Stairs and colleagues suffered frequently from malaria and dysentery . Stairs had endurance, toughness and perseverance. He discovered one source of the Nile , the Semliki River , and became the first non-African to ever climb in
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