Henry Wickham (explorer)

Sir Henry Wickham
photo of Sir Henry Wickham from the Library of Congress catalog
Born
Henry Alexander Wickham

(1846-05-29)29 May 1846
Hampstead, London, England
Died27 September 1928(1928-09-27) (aged 82)
Paddington, London, England
OccupationExplorer
SpouseViolet Case Carter

Sir Henry Alexander Wickham (29 May 1846 – 27 September 1928) was a British explorer. He was the first person to successfully export a large, viable shipment of, smuggled, Brazilian rubber seeds to the British Empire.[1] The British had long planned to create rubber plantations in Southeast Asia, and using Wickham's batch, the resulting plantations brought about the end of the Amazon rubber boom.[2][1]

  1. ^ a b Dean, Warren (1987). Brazil and the Struggle for Rubber: A Study in Environmental History. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521526920.
  2. ^ Ponting, Clive (2007). A New Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations. New York: Penguin Books. p. 183. ISBN 978-0-14-303898-6.