SIR

See also:

• ROBERT
• ROBERT (1275—1343)
• ROBERT, HUBERT (1753-1808)
• ROBERT, LOUIS LEOPOLD (1794-1835)

ROBERT

See also:

• HERMANN, JOHANN GOTTFRIED JAKOB (1772–1848)
• HERMANN, KARL FRIEDRICH (1804–1855)

HERMANN

See also:

• SIR ROBERT HERMANN SCHOMBURGK (1804-1865)

SCHOMBURGK (1804-1865)  , British traveller, was born at Freiburg, Prussian Saxony, on the 5th of June 1804, the son of a Protestant minister . In 1829 he went to the United States, but in 1830 left for Anegada, one of the Virgin Isles . He surveyed the island at his own expense, and sent to the Royal Geographical Society, London, a report which created such an impression that, in 1835, he was entrusted by that body with the conduct' of an exploring expedition to British Guiana . He fulfilled his mission with great success, incidentally discovering the Victoria Regia lily . In 1841 he returned to Guiana to survey the colony and fix the boundary for the British Government . The result was the provisional boundary between British Guiana and Venezuela known as the " Schomburgk Line," for which see the articles on those two countries . On his return to England he was knighted . In 1848 he was appointed British consul to St Domingo, and, in 1857, British consul to Bangkok . While holding these posts he continued his geographical surveys . He retired from the public service in 1864, and died at Berlin on the lath of March 1865 . He was the author of a Description of British Guiana and a History of Barbadoes .