On the road to Tibet

Frank Kingdon-Ward was born Francis Kingdon Ward (no hyphen) on 6th november 1885 in Manchester. In his first adventure he was offered a place on a zoological expedition led by an American and funded by the Duke of Bedford to search for new species in western China. He agonised over the decision for about a nanosecond before taking extended leave from his school in Shanghai (where he had a job as a teacher) and joining the Bedford expedition up the Yangtze. On this trip he discovered a new species of mouse and two new shrews as well as sending back a small collection of plants to Cambridge. With his first publication "On the road to Tibet” which is reprinted here for the first time he was elected fellow of the Royal geographical society. As a consequence he was asked to collect hardy plants from Yunnan and Tibet to grow in English gardens. He brought back about 200 different species including 22 new to science.