Is regarded as one of the greatest of the early African explorers.
He was an accomplished naturalist, who amassed vast natural history collections and described many new species.Sadly, his achievements were not fully recognised by his contemporaries and he became a solitary and unhappy figure in later life.

In 1810 Burchell embarked upon his first expedition, which he documented in his 2-volume work ‘Travels in the interior of southern Africa’. He returned to England in 1815 with amassing a total of 63000 specimens, including about 50000 plant specimens, skins, skeletons, insects, live seeds, bulbs, and fish which had been preserved. Besides this, he made accurate and pleasing sketches along the way, annotated his collections copiously, compiled a Catalogus geographicus of his route and the collecting areas, and described new genera and species. Perhaps even more important than this, his ecological and phytogeographical notes, detailed and accurate, are still among the few written descriptions of the vegetation in certain areas of Southern Africa.

Burchell set out upon his second, and final, expedition in 1825. This time he travelled across Brazil, where he again collected vast numbers of specimens including over 20,000 insects, 362 species of bird and many other plants and animals.

In 1830, Burchell returned to Britain and was awarded an honorary doctorate by Oxford University in recognition of his works. However, his travels had exhausted his personal fortune and he gradually became an isolated and disillusioned figure. In 1863, after several years of ill health, Burchell took his own life.

Nacionalidad: britanica.