The Final Lecture of the 2024 / 2025 Season is on

Monday 10th March 2025

'Mungo Park & his Exploration of

the River Niger'

by

Professor Charles W.J. Withers

Charles W.J.Withers - Charlie - is Emeritus Professor of Historical Geography at the University of Edinburgh.  Educated at Stewart Melville's School in Edinburgh, then St Andrew's and Cambridge Universities, Charlie joined Edinburgh University as Professor of Historical Geography in 1994; he was the Head of its Institute of Geography from 2006 until 1009, and subsequently held the Ogilvie Chair of Geography for nine years from 2010.

In 2015, Charlie was appointed Geographer Royal for Scotland, the first person to occupy thae position since 1897.  Other professional affiliations include Fellowships of the British Academy, the Royal Geographical Society, the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Society of Edinburgh.  He is also a member of the Academia Europaea.

A prolific writer, Charlies' books include the prize-winning Scotland: Mapping the Nation (2011), co-authored with Chris Fleet and Margaret Wilkes, and Zero Degrees: Geographies of the Prime Meridian (2017 and also a prize-winner).  His latest book Majestic River: Mungo Park and the Exploration of the Niger (2023) was short-listed for the Scottish History Book of the Year that same year.

Although now retired, he still researches and writes.  He is a member of the environmental charity Friends of the Pentlands, helping restore footpaths, repair bridges, stiles and fences, and plant trees.  He is a ('not very good') watercolour painter; he and his wife Anne - a translator - have three children and two grandchildren who they help to look after. 

This lecture is another one in our series of talks on prominent Scots and their achievements.   To quote Birlinn Ltd, the book's publishers:

"Majestic River celebrates Mungo Park's achievements and illuminates his rich afterlife - how and why he was commemorated long after his death.  It is also the thrilling story of the many expeditions that sought to determine the Niger's course and the facts of Park's disappearance, as well as a biography of the Niger itself as the river slowly took shape in the European imagination"

Nairn Community Centre 

King Street, Nairn

7.30 p.m.

A Warm Welcome Awaits!

Members Free, Guests £5.00 on the door