British Museum Ruwenzori expeditions

Henry Morton Stanley was the first European to recognise that the Ruwenzori was a snow covered range. The object of the expedition was "to make collections of natural history specimens, and especially of birds and mammals". The expedition left England on 5 October 1905, Richard Edward Dent (b. 1882) and a comprehensive report on the zoological results was published in 1909. Numerous new species were collected including at least 23 new species of mammal, 24 new species of birds, 6 new species of moths, 47 new species of butterflies, 6 new species of molluscs and 34 new species of plants (and one new genus). but in February 1906 Wollaston, a member of the Alpine Club, along with Woosnam and Dent set off towards the upper slopes "the object of the expedition was primarily to collect specimens; Woosnam and Dent were in quest of birds and mammals, and I went to collect plants, but we had at the back of our minds the idea of getting up something if an opportunity should occur, and we accordingly took with us all the apparatus that we could collect. This consisted of about 25 feet of Alpine rope and a pair of crampons, which we had obtained from Herr Grauer, and an old ice-axe, which Mr. Freshfield had left behind him at Toro." ==British Museum Ruwenzori expedition 1934–1935==

A British Museum botanical-entomological expedition to the eastern Ruwenzori took place from September 1934-March 1935. The joint leaders were Frederick Wallace Edwards (entomologist) and George Taylor (botanist), both employees of the British Museum. E.G. Gibbins, T.H.E. Jackson and J.F. Shillito. Before taking part in the Ruwenzori expedition, Synge and Ford had both been members of the Oxford University Expedition to Sarawak in 1932. The Ruwenzori expedition operated in two parties, one being active mainly in the Namwamba valley and the other mainly in the Nyamgasani valley. Short forays were also made to the Virunga Mountains, Mount Elgon and the Aberdare Range. The Kalinzu forest and Budongo Forest were also visited. A general account of the expedition is given in Synges book Mountains of the Moon The reports on the material collected by the expedition were published by the British Museum between 1939 and 1957 in a special publication entitled the Ruwenzori Expedition 1934–1935 which comprised 3 volumes, with a total of 29 parts. ==British Museum Ruwenzori expedition 1952==

In the summer of 1952 the geologist William Quarrier Kennedy of Leeds University led the third expedition involving the British Museum in the Ruwenzori. The party included another British geologist, George P. L. Walker, and members of the Uganda Geological Survey. The British Museum was represented by three naturalists: Robert Ross (botanist), Gwilym O. Evans (zoologist) and David Stephen Fletcher (entomologist). The geological aspects of the expedition involved a collaboration with a Belgian expedition which was visiting Ruwenzori at the same time. The zoological collecting was primarily focused on soil-fauna extracted from the soil, forest litter, moss and lichen samples. ==References==