Libya: A sand wind on the desert, George Francis Lyon (1795-1832)

George Francis Lyon (1795–1832) was a rare combination of Arctic and African explorer. By all accounts a fun loving extrovert, he also managed to be a competent British Naval Officer, Commander, explorer, artist and socialite. While not having a particularly distinguished career, he is remembered for the entertaining journals he kept and for the watercolour paintings he completed in the Sahara and the Arctic.

In 1818 he was sent with Joseph Ritchie by Sir John Barrow to find the course of the Niger River and the location of Timbuktu. The expedition was underfunded, lacked support and because of the ideas of John Barrow departed from Tripoli and thus had to cross the Sahara as a preliminary part of their journey.

A year later, due to much officialdom they had only got as far as Murzuq where they both fell ill. Ritchie never recovered and died there, but Lyon survived and travelled further around the region. Exactly a year to the day he left, he arrived back in Tripoli, the expedition being a complete failure.

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