Younghusband, Sir Francis (Edward) (1863-1942)

British explorer, soldier, author, and mystic. Born at Murree, India, May 31, 1863, he was educated at Clifton and Sand-hurst, England. He joined the British army in 1882.

From 1886 to 1887 he traveled across central Asia from Peking to Yarkand and on to India, crossing the Karakoram Range by the Muztagh Pass. He discovered the Aghil Mountains and showed that the Great Karakoram was the water divide between India and Turkistan. On later explorations beyond the Karakoram he was able to trace the river Shaksgam to its junction with the Yarkand, and explored the Pamirs. During his period in the 1st Dragoon Guards, Younghusband held the rank of captain.

In 1890 he transferred to the Indian political department and served in northwest frontier stations. He visited South Africa in 1896. He was a special correspondent for The Times news-paper, London, in the Chitral Expedition in 1895 and a political agent in Haraoti and Tonk in 1898. While residing in India, he was the British Commissioner to Tibet (1902-04). He led the British mission to Lhasa, culminating in the Anglo-Tibetan Treaty of September 7, 1904. For this he was honored by the decoration of Knight Commander of the Indian Empire. He was one of the first modern British explorers to investigate the almost legendary territory of Tibet and enter the mysterious city of Lhasa, long fabled by Theosophists and others as the center of mysterious adepts and Masters. While he discovered no secret occult forces, he did develop a sympathetic consideration of Eastern religions and an appreciation of their spirituality.

In 1905 he returned to England, where he became Rede lecturer at Cambridge University before traveling to Kashmir as Resident. He was honored as Knight Commander of the Star of India in 1917. After his retirement in 1919, he became chairman of the Royal Geographical Society, who had awarded him their gold medal in 1891. He also formed and was chairman of the Mount Everest Committee.

Younghusband typified the best of the old-style British patriots of the British Empire period. He was an excellent and courageous soldier and explorer, yet deeply sympathetic to the aspirations and spiritual ideals of other peoples. He recognized the need for self-government in India. His book Modern Mystics (1935; reissued University Books, 1970) expressed his sympathy with the spirituality of different religions and his belief in an underlying unity. In 1936 he founded the World Congress of Faiths. His books include: But in Our Lives (1926), The Heart of Nature (1921), India and Tibet (1910), Within (1912), The World Congress of Faith (1938), and World Fellowship of Faiths (1935).

He died at Lytchett Minster, near Poole, Britain, on July 31, 1942.