Wilfred Thesiger

(1910 - 2003)

The travel writer and explorer Wilfred Thesiger was born in 1910 in Ethiopia, where his father served as a British minister at the Abyssinian emperor’s court. After stints at Eton and Oxford, he returned to Africa, where he served during World War II. After the war ended, he headed toward the Middle East, a corner of the world he spend much of his life exploring. One of his companions said of Thesiger: “He was loyal, generous, and afraid of nothing. He was a wonderful man to travel with.” He died at the age of ninety-three in a retirement home in Surrey.