William Desborough Cooley
William Desborough Cooley (c. 1795 – 1883) was an Irish geographer. Discoveries by European explorers gradually showed that a number of his theories about Central Africa, though strongly held, were incorrect. In other controversies his position is now considered to have had some justification. His major contributions are now seen as relating to source criticism of historical records, the understanding of West Africa, and as a perceptive historian of
Life
Cooley was born in Dublin, the son of William Cooley, a barrister, and grandson of Thomas Cooley the architect.[1] He studied at Trinity College Dublin from 1811 to 1816. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) of London in 1830, being made an honorary free member in 1864. On the publication of Jean Baptiste Douville's Voyage au Congo in 1832, Cooley wrote an article in the Foreign Quarterly Review, which was instrumental in exposing the fraud practised by Douville.[2]
After the Douville incident, Cooley became an influential figure for a time in the RGS. He proposed, working with
Cooley held and defended strong views on the geography of Central Africa. He rejected the existence of snow-covered mountains there, even after
A speaker of
Works
Cooley wrote, for
In 1852 Cooley published Inner Africa laid open, an attempt to trace the major lines of communication across the continent south of the Equator. In this work, relying based on Portuguese and African sources, he maintained that there existed just one great lake in Central Africa, and that the snowy mountains reported by Johann Ludwig Krapf and Johannes Rebmann were myths.[2]
Cooley contributed to the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, and wrote a series of controversial articles on African subjects to the
- The Negroland of the Arabs examined and explained; or, an Inquiry into the early History and Geography of Central Africa, London 1841. This work drew on Cooley's friendship with Pascual de Gayangos y Arce, in finding Arabic sources.[4]
- An edition of Pierre Henri Larcher's Notes on Herodotus, 2 vols. 1844.
- The World surveyed in the XIX Century; or Recent Narratives of Scientific and Exploratory Expeditions translated, and, where necessary, abridged, 2 vols. London 1845–8.
- Sir Francis Drake, his Voyage, 1595, by Thomas Maynarde, edited from the original manuscripts for the Hakluyt Society, 1849.
- Claudius Ptolemy and the Nile; or an inquiry into that geographer's real merits and speculative errors, his knowledge of Eastern Africa, and the authenticity of the Mountains of the Moon, London 1854.
- Dr. Livingstone's Reise vom Fluss Liambey nach Loanda in 1853–4 kritisch und kommentarisch beleuchtet, 1855.
- The Memoir on the Lake Regions of East Africa reviewed, London 1864. In reply to Richard Francis Burton's letter in the Athenæum, No. 1899, which contradicted his theories, Cooley cast doubt on Burton's use of reports from Africans.[5]
- Dr. Livingstone and the Royal Geographical Society, London 1874.
- Physical Geography, or the Terraqueous Globe and its Phenomena, London 1876.
Notes
- ^ doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/6201. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ^ a b c d e f Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1887). . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 12. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
- ^ R. C. Bridges, W. D. Cooley, the RGS and African Geography in the Nineteenth Century: Part I: Cooley's Contribution to the Geography of Eastern Africa, The Geographical Journal Vol. 142, No. 1 (Mar. 1976), pp. 27–47, at p. 30. Published by: The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers). Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1796021
- ^ ISBN 978-1-4411-3657-2.
- ISBN 978-0-674-03948-3.
- Attribution
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1887). "Cooley, William Desborough". Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 12. London: Smith, Elder & Co.