William Grant Stairs (1 July 1863 – 9 June 1892) was a Canadian-British[1] explorer, soldier, and adventurer who had a leading role in two of the most controversial expeditions in the Scramble for Africa.

Captain Stairs was appointed to the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition led by Henry Morton Stanley, at the time the most celebrated living explorer of Africa.

During the 5000 km journey across Africa through some of its most difficult country consisting of almost impenetrable rainforest and swamps, Stairs and colleagues suffered frequently from malaria and dysentery.

In Dublin, Ireland there is a bronze plaque depicting this 13 August 1887 event on the statue of expedition Surgeon Major Thomas Heazle Parke who removed the arrow and sucked the poison from the wound.

[4] Leopold had used Stanley's services before and agreed with his use of force and understood Stairs to be in the same mould, and he had a reputation for carrying out orders completely and without hesitation.

[5] The Stairs Expedition was a military mission of 400 men under the Congo Free State flag, armed with 200 modern rifles.

[9] Oral histories of the Garanganze people say that the expedition kept Msiri's head – by some accounts in a can of kerosene – but it cursed and killed everyone who carried it and eventually, this included Stairs.

[6] Katanga became part of the Congo Free State, which was annexed by Belgium in 1908 after an international outcry over the killings, brutality and slavery by Leopold's regime.

A collection of artefacts from his African expeditions are at Fort Frederick (Kingston) and some his diaries are preserved in the Public Archives of Nova Scotia; others are lost.