John Petherick

In 1845 he entered the service of Mehemet Ali, and was employed in examining Upper Egypt, Nubia, the Red Sea coast and Kordofan in an unsuccessful search for coal.

[1] In 1848 Petherick left the Egyptian service and established himself at El Obeid, the capital of Kordofan, as a trader, dealing largely in gum arabic.

Having arranged for a native force to proceed south to get in touch with the absentees, a task successfully accomplished, Mr and Mrs Petherick undertook another journey in the Bahr-el-Ghazal, making important collections of plants and fishes.

They regained Gondokoro (where one of their boats with stores was already stationed) in February 1863, four days after the arrival of Speke and Grant, who had meantime accepted the hospitality of Mr (afterwards Sir) Samuel Baker.

[2] In 1865 the Pethericks returned to England, and in 1869 published Travels in Central Africa and Explorations of the Western Nile Tributaries, in which he set out the details of the Speke controversy.