Sir Wilfred Thesiger was one of the 20th century's greatest explorers. He spent most of his life roaming the most distant, desolate and inaccessible parts of the world.

Wilfred Thesiger was born in Addis Ababa in 1910, the son of a British diplomat. After attending Eton and Oxford, he set out on the first of his many adventures in Africa.

In 1930 he received a personal invitation by Emperor Haile Selassie to attend his coronation. In 1933, he returned in an expedition to explore the course of the Awash River, funded in part by the RGS-IBG.

Thesiger joined the Sudan Political Service and, in World War 2, fought in Gideon Force in Ethiopia, and in the Long Range Desert Group in North Africa. He later undertook a dangerous journey across the uninhabited dunes of Arabia for the Desert Locusts Research Organisation.

Arabian Sands (1959) recounts his travels in the Empty Quarter of Arabia between 1945 and 1950 and describes the vanishing way of life of the Bedouins. The Marsh Arabs (1964) is an account of the traditional peoples who lived in the marshlands of southern Iraq.

These are supported by the Sultan of Oman as a memorial to Wilfred Thesiger .

Every year the Society offers two fellowships of up to £8,000 for geographical research in the arid regions of the world.

Picture courtesy of Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford. PRM 2004.130.22798