Editing John Hanning Speke (section)

==Death==
[[File:Speke’s Monument in the Kensington Gardens, London 2013 (4).JPG|thumb|upright|An [[obelisk]] dedicated to Speke stands in [[Kensington Gardens]], London]]
[[File:Speke monument 5.jpg|thumb|250px|Speke monument in Uganda]]
A debate was planned between Speke and Burton before the geographical section of the British Association in [[Bath, Somerset|Bath]] on 16 September 1864,<ref>{{cite book|last=Sparrow-Niang|first= Jane |year=2014|title=Bath and the Nile Explorers: In commemoration of the 150th anniversary of Burton and Speke's encounter in Bath, September 1864, and their 'Nile Duel' which never happened|publisher=[[Bath Royal Literary and Scientific Institution]]|location= [[Bath, Somerset|Bath]]|isbn=978-0-9544941-6-2|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lnPIswEACAAJ}}</ref> but Speke had died the previous afternoon from a possibly self-inflicted gunshot wound while shooting at [[Neston Park]] in [[Wiltshire]].<ref>{{cite ODNB|first=Roy |last=Bridges|author-link = Roy Bridges (historian)|id=26101 |title=Speke, John Hanning (1827–1864)}}</ref> A contemporary account of the events surrounding his death appeared in ''[[The Times]]'':<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Death of Speke in 1864 (The Uganda Journal, Vol. 13) |last=Thomas |first=H. B. |website=burtoniana.org |url=https://burtoniana.org/speke/#obit |date=1949 |access-date=26 October 2022 }}</ref>
{{quotation|At about 2.30 p.m. on the same day [15 September 1864] Speke set out from his uncle's house in company with his cousin, George Fuller, and a gamekeeper, Daniel Davis, for an afternoon's shooting in Neston Park. He fired both barrels in the course of the afternoon and about 4 p.m. Davis was marking birds for the two guns who were about 60 yards apart. Speke was seen to climb onto a stone wall about 2 feet high: for the moment he was without his gun. A few seconds later there was a report and when George Fuller rushed up Speke's gun was found behind the wall in the field into which Speke had jumped. The right barrel was at half-cock: only the left barrel was discharged. Speke who was bleeding seriously was sensible for a few minutes and said feebly, "Don't move me." George Fuller went for assistance leaving Davis to attend him; but Speke survived for only about 15 minutes, and when Mr. Snow, surgeon of [[Box, Wiltshire|Box]], arrived he was already dead. There was a single wound in his left side such as would be made by a cartridge if the muzzle of the gun—a [[Charles William Lancaster|Lancaster]] breech-loader without a safety guard—were close to the body; the charge had passed upwards through the lungs dividing all the large blood vessels over the heart, though missing the heart itself.{{fact|date=April 2021}}}}

An inquest concluded that the death was accidental, a conclusion supported by his only [[biographer]] Alexander Maitland, though the idea of [[suicide]] has appealed to some.<ref name="Sly2010">{{cite book|last=Sly|first=Nicola|title=A grim almanac of Somerset|year=2010|publisher=History Press|location=Stroud|isbn=9780752458144|pages=32}}</ref> Bearing in mind, however, that the fatal wound was just below Speke's armpit, suicide seems most unlikely. Burton, however, could not set aside his own strong dislike of Speke and was vocal in spreading the idea of a suicide, claiming that Speke feared the debate.<ref name="Jeal2011"/> Speke was buried in [[Church of St Andrew, Dowlish Wake|St Andrew's Church, Dowlish Wake]] in [[Somerset]], five miles away from the ancestral home of the Speke family.<ref name="DNB"/>