British Exploring Society
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| Founded | 1932 |
|---|---|
| Founder | Surgeon Commander George Murray Levick RN |
| Type | Charity |
| Registration no. | 802196 (England and Wales) |
| Focus | Youth development |
| Location |
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Key people
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Professor David Rhind President |
| Website | www |
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Formerly called
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Public Schools Exploring Society British Schools Exploring Society BSES Expeditions |
The British Exploring Society is a UK-based youth development charity with offices at the Royal Geographical Society building, aiming to provide young people with an intense and lasting experience of self-discovery in wilderness environments. This aim revolves around its founding idea: to provide exciting, challenging, life-changing expeditions in wild and remote overseas locations for young people.
The Society began as the "Public Schools Exploring Society", founded in 1932 by Surgeon Commander George Murray Levick RN, who had been a member of Captain Scott's final Antarctic Expedition of 1910-13.
It was later renamed the "British Schools Exploring Society", then became "BSES Expeditions", before adopting its current name in 2012.
Murray Levick led the first 9 expeditions (1932-1939 & 1947) himself (though Lapland 1936 was split into a Senior and Junior expeditions; the junior section of which was led by Captain C A Carkeet-James, RA). These first expeditions all went to either Lapland in Scandinavia or Newfoundland, Canada.
The Society has now, with the assistance of dozens of different leaders, sent expeditions all over the world, from the Tropics to both Arctic circles (See List of Expedition Locations below).
Until 1986 the Society always sent expeditions to ‘cold climates’ such as Canada and Scandinavia. This is because when the Society was founded, the expeditions were designed to fit into the summer holidays of British public schools and the summertime conditions of those places were easier to deal with when spending so much time camping and in the wilderness. However, expedition techniques had improved enough that by the mid-1980s tropical destinations were beginning to be considered. The expedition to Kenya in 1986 was the Society’s first to a ‘hot climate’ country.
Similarly, the Society became less restricted in the timing of its expeditions as it began to take on more ‘gap-year’ and undergraduate age young explorers; this led to expeditions taking on new challenges such as wintering in cold climates and going on spring expeditions to enable the explorers to experience such different climates and collect scientific data year-round.
Initially, despite plenty of female representation in the Society’s offices since it was founded (Mrs Audrey Murray Levick, the wife of Surgeon Commander George Murray Levick, was the first Vice-President and Secretary of the Society), the expedition parties were all male. This began to change in 1978; on that year’s expedition to Iceland the Base Camp Manager’s role was fulfilled by another husband and wife team, Fred and Peta Babcock. The Chief Leader’s Narrative from that year’s annual report states, “Life in Base Camp was kept on an even keel by Fred and Peta Babcock who jointly managed the stores, fed leaders who called in and skillfully repaired equipment”. As a result, it can be said that Peta was the first female leader on a Society expedition. 2 years later, the 1980 Expedition to Arctic Norway became the Society’s first to have both female leaders and young explorers. It coincided with the sad passing of Mrs. Audrey Murray Levick.
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Wikipedia