p. 260

DEATH OF MR. REGINALD SUGGATE
OF LUDHAM

[D. 12.12.1927 (handwritten)]

REMINISCENCES OF FAMOUS EXPLORERS.

At the Rose Cottage, Ludham, the death
occurred on Monday night of Mr. Reginald
Suggate, a pensioner of the Royal Geographical
Society's clerical staff. A native of Yarmouth,
at the age of 14, when the office of the R.G.S.
was in Saville Row, London, he received an
appointment under the then president, Sir
Clements Markham, retiring in 1913 after 53
years' service. During that period he came in
contact with, as he himself phrased it, a long
procession of makers of history.

His duties as a shorthand writer, which he
learned under Fred Pitman, son of Sir Isaac
Pitman, the inventor of phonography, made
him familiar at the R.G.S. office with some
famous explorers. Livingstone, wearing his
gold laced cap as Consul for Central Africa,
was a frequent visitor, and Suggate recalled
the measured tones in which, in his hearing,
the great discoverer declared that his wife
had been the principal spoke in his wheel.
Amongst Suggate's treasures was the official pass
by which he attended Livingstone's funeral in
Westminster Abbey. With all his appreciation
of the career of Henry M. Stanley, Suggate con-
fessed that he never felt quite at ease in
Stanley's presence; the office junior staff were
nettled by Stanley's imperious manner.

Amongst all the distinguished men he met
the outstanding personality was Nansen. From
the moment Nansen entered the room to the
moment he quitted it the eyes of the office staff
turned admiringly on the manly form of the
modest spoken Arctic explorer. Suggate had
conversed with Speke, Captain Scott, and
Shackleton. Selous, whose name the office staff
pronounced as "Sluice," once set down one of
his big game guns in the office, and Suggate,
picking it up, was astonished at its heaviness.

Paul du Chaillu, in 1860, deposited three
stuffed Congo gorillas at the R.G.S. office, and
Suggate heard him describe how in an encounter
with a gorilla the animal seized his gun, and in
its powerful grasp it bent the barrel as a
strong man bends a poker. Suggate gave the
writer the following transcript of the society's
award : "1866. P. B. Du Chaillu, the sum of
one hundred guineas for his astronomical
observations on the interior of Western
Equatorial Africa."

Mr. Suggate was an accomplished musician.
The proudest moments, he said, of his boyhoood
were the occasions on which he had the satis-
faction of hiolding the music sheet for one of
the instrumentalists during a performance
by the band of the Grenadier Guards.
He studied music under Sir John
Stainer, and played the 'cello in oratorio at
the Crystal Palace when the orchestra was
directed by Sir Michael Costa. He was person-
ally acquainted with Sims Reeves and expressed
high admiration of the sympathetic quality of
that singer's intonation. Next to music, his
recreation was fishing, and he told the writer
that in his early days on Oulton Broad the
only crafty to be seen there were occasional
trading wherries.

Unobtrusive , kindly and gentle mannered,
and of a singularly happy disposition, a book
and a pipe solaced the frailties of age, and the
end came peacefully.

T. M.