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The 1955-56 Oxford and Cambridge Far Eastern Expedition was a publicity effort by
Land Rover Land Rover is a British brand of predominantly four-wheel drive, off-road capable vehicles, owned by multinational car manufacturer Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), since 2008 a subsidiary of India's Tata Motors. JLR currently builds Land Rovers i ...
in support of the 1956
Land Rover Series The Land Rover series I, II, and III (commonly referred to as ''series'' Land Rovers, to distinguish them from later models) are compact British off-road vehicles, produced by the Rover Company since 1948, and later by British Leyland. Thoug ...
I Station Wagons. The
station wagons A station wagon ( US, also wagon) or estate car ( UK, also estate), is an automotive body-style variant of a sedan/saloon with its roof extended rearward over a shared passenger/cargo volume with access at the back via a third or fifth door ( ...
were very different from the previous
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model, being built with bolt-together aluminium panels. The journey was undertaken by six Oxford & Cambridge university students from London to Singapore. The Expedition was inspired by the earlier 1954 Oxford and Cambridge Trans-Africa Expedition, developed by
Adrian Cowell Adrian Cowell (2 February 1934 – 11 October 2011) was a British filmmaker, born in Tongshan or Tangshan, China. He was best known for producing documentaries about Chico Mendes and deforestation in the Amazon and the opium/heroin trade out of th ...
.


Team members

All members were from either
Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the Un ...
or
Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
, and all had just finished their degrees when they set out on the expedition, with the exception of Nigel Newbery, who had one year left, and was the only Oxford student. The expedition members and their roles on the expedition were as follows: * Antony "B.B." Barrington Brown - Cameraman *
Adrian Cowell Adrian Cowell (2 February 1934 – 11 October 2011) was a British filmmaker, born in Tongshan or Tangshan, China. He was best known for producing documentaries about Chico Mendes and deforestation in the Amazon and the opium/heroin trade out of th ...
- Business Manager * Patrick Murphy - Navigator and Chef * Nigel Newbery - Quartermaster and Mechanic * Henry Nott - Chief Engineer * Tim Slessor - Scribe and Assistant Cameraman


Route

After setting off from Hyde Park in London, on 1 September 1955, the expedition was flown over to the European continent and from there continued through France, Monaco, Germany,
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous c ...
,
Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
,
Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...
,
Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...
,
Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
,
Iraq Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
,
Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkme ...
,
Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...
,
Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...
, India,
Nepal Nepal (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...
,
Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...
,
Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...
,
Malaya Malaya refers to a number of historical and current political entities related to what is currently Peninsular Malaysia in Southeast Asia: Political entities * British Malaya (1826–1957), a loose collection of the British colony of the Straits ...
and
Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borderin ...
. Arriving on 6 March 1956, the journey took six months and six days, over 18,000 miles.


Legacy


Oxford and Cambridge Expedition to South America (1957-8)

The next joint expedition was the 1957-8 Oxford and Cambridge Expedition to South America, on which at least two team members from the Singapore journey took part: Adrian Cowell and Nigel Newbery.


Eric Edis expedition (1957-9)

Between 1957 and 1959, Eric Edis led a sixteen-person team on an overland expedition from London to Singapore and then on to Australia and back to the UK - the first man to make the round trip overland and with no sponsorship. He was also the only man to cross the 'closed' Burmese border twice unaided. See Eric Edis' book ''The Impossible Takes A Little Longer''.


''First Overland'' (1957)

''First Overland: London-Singapore by Land Rover'' is the 1957 book recounting the expedition by Tim Slessor, originally published by ''The Companion Book Club'' under the title ''First Overland: The Story of the Oxford and Cambridge Far Eastern Expedition''. The 2005 50th anniversary edition, published by Signal Books Ltd, also contains a foreword by
Sir David Attenborough Sir David Frederick Attenborough (; born 8 May 1926) is an English broadcaster, biologist, natural historian and author. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, the nine natural histor ...
, who is listed as co-author. The book is the main source of information about the expedition and its fullest account, as the footage and subsequent programmes made with it only cover a small portion of what the six students did and experienced on their long journey.


50th Anniversary of the Expedition (2006)

On the 50th Anniversary of the Expedition, the five surviving members (all except Henry Nott) traveled once more to the Far East and recreated the last leg of their journey, covering the 350 km from
Kuala Lumpur , anthem = '' Maju dan Sejahtera'' , image_map = , map_caption = , pushpin_map = Malaysia#Southeast Asia#Asia , pushpin_map_caption = , coordinates = , su ...
to Singapore on 4 March 2006. The following day, the five men did the one thing they forgot in 1956 - they followed Rudyard Kipling's instruction to "feed at Raffles" and enjoyed brunch at the Bar and Billiard Room and Singapore Slings at the Long Bar. The 1955 route is now largely impassable, because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.


The Last Overland

At the age of 87, Tim Slessor and historian and filmmaker Alex Bescogy in one of the original Land Rovers, "Oxford", planned re-creating the first London to Singapore trip by doing it in reverse. Unfortunately Tim Slessor was taken ill on the day they were due to leave Singapore, 25 August 2019, and was not able to participate, but his grandson, Nat George, stepped in and took his place, arriving in London 111 days later on 14 December 2019. Tim Bescoby wrote a book on the subject, "Last Overland" and a Channel 4 documentary was also produced.


Adaption for screen

The expedition set out with only a limited quantity of film from the BBC, but with the promise of more from
David Attenborough Sir David Frederick Attenborough (; born 8 May 1926) is an English broadcaster, biologist, natural historian and author. He is best known for writing and presenting, in conjunction with the BBC Natural History Unit, the nine natural histor ...
if the initial material sent back was good. In the end there was enough material for 3 short films for the BBC series 'Traveller's Tales' which were shot in colour, but only transmitted in black and white. In the late 1950s there was no home recording technology like VHS, so once broadcast, the films faded from view and have only been seen occasionally since. Recently they have been re-mastered and edited, with a commentary by the cameraman Antony Barrington-Brown and Tim Slessor, and interviews with Nigel Newbery, Pat Murphy, Adrian Cowell and Sir David Attenborough. The DVD also has an 'extra' about the making of the original films and the rescuing of the footage.


References

{{reflist


Bibliography

*Slessor, Tim. (1957), ''First Overland: The Story of the Oxford and Cambridge Far Eastern Expedition'', The Companion Book Club, London. ASIN: B0000CJTJQ


External links


Adrian Cowell, 'It's Started, The Rally To Singapore', The Straits Times.BBC Radio Interview with Pat Murphy, 1955 expedition navigatorOfficial website of ''First Overland'' AudiobookThe original film footage from the 1955 Oxford and Cambridge Far Eastern Expedition available now on DVDFilm clips
1955 in transport Expeditions using Land Rovers 1957 non-fiction books Clubs and societies of the University of Oxford Clubs and societies of the University of Cambridge