Grant Carveth Wells (21 January 188716 February 1957) was a British adventurer, travel writer, and television personality in the mid-twentieth century. Wells was the author of eighteen travel-related books, including ''Six Years in the Malay Jungle'', ''Road to Shalimar'', and ''North of Singapore''. Wells also produced films, radio and television shows relating to his travels.

Biography

Wells was born in

Surrey, England Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

, to Bermudian Thomas Grant Wells (1838-1916) and Anna Carkeet (1838-1925). His father was one of a long line of forebears named Thomas Wells, stretching back to the seventeenth-century settlement of the Somers Isles (or Islands of

Bermuda Bermuda is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean. The closest land outside the territory is in the American state of North Carolina, about to the west-northwest. Bermuda is an ...

), including a Member of the Council of Bermuda and

Ensign Ensign most often refers to: * Ensign (flag), a flag flown on a vessel to indicate nationality * Ensign (rank), a navy (and former army) officer rank Ensign or The Ensign may also refer to: Places * Ensign, Alberta, Alberta, Canada * Ensign, Ka ...

of the Bermuda Militia. His father had been a civilian paymaster of the Royal Naval Dockyard in the

Imperial fortress Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury, Lord Salisbury described Malta, Gibraltar, Bermuda, and Halifax as Imperial fortresses at the 1887 Colonial Conference, though by that point they had been so designated for decades. Later histor ...

colony A colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule, which rules the territory and its indigenous peoples separated from the foreign rulers, the colonizer, and their ''metropole'' (or "mother country"). This separated rule was often orga ...

of Bermuda. His paternal grandfather, Asael Wells, had been an accountant at the Royal Naval Hospital. He was a cousin of Gladys Carlyon De Courcy Misick Morrell (the daughter of Thalia Jane Dalzell Misick, born Wells), whose maternal grandfather, John McDowell Wells (1827-1871), was the older brother of Thomas Grant Wells. Carveth Wells' father was injured by criminals attempting to rob him of the payroll in his charge. Insensible, and with a fractured skull, he was sent to the Royal Naval Hospital, Plymouth, at Royal Naval Dockyard, Devonport, England, where he regained consciousness after a piece of his skull was removed. It was thought that his father would not live long and he was advised to apply for a commuted pension and to withdraw the money in a lump sum, which he quickly spent. His father, in fact, lived into his eighties, married in England to his mother, Anna Carkeet, in 1868, and never returned to Bermuda or to ''Nattie'', the young woman there he would presumably otherwise have married. His parents had seven other children: Sarah Louisa Wells (1868–1960), Edward Carthew Wells (1872–1930), Grant MacDowell Wells (1873–1874), Alfred De Vries Wells (1875–1958), Charlotte Elizabeth Dalzell Wells (1877–), Beatrice Carkeet Dalzell Wells (1880–1949), and Olivia Croil Dalzell Wells (1882–1957). His sister Beatrice Carkeet Dalzell Wells was awarded the

Queen's South Africa Medal The Queen's South Africa Medal is a British campaign medal awarded to British and Colonial military personnel, and to civilians employed in an official capacity, who served in the Second Boer War in South Africa. Altogether twenty-six clasps wer ...

during the

Second Boer War The Second Boer War (, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, Transvaal War, Anglo–Boer War, or South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer republics (the South African Republic and ...

and the Defence Medal during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Carveth Wells graduated from

London University The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degr ...

in 1909, with an engineering degree. In 1912, the British government sent Wells to its then-colony of Malaya, to survey the route for a railroad, and to explore the flora and fauna of the region. Here he was the first person to report an encounter with the Mayah people of the Tanum Valley,

Pahang {{Infobox political division , name = Pahang , official_name = Pahang Darul Makmur , native_name = , settlement_type = States and federal territories of Malaysia, State , image_skyline = , imagesize ...

.Lim, Teckwyn. 2020
Ethnolinguistic Notes on the Language Endangerment Status of Mintil, an Aslian Language
''Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society'' (''JSEALS'') 13.1 (2020): i-xiv. ISSN 1836-6821. University of Hawaiʼi Press. However, Wells' health suffered badly in Malaya. In 1918, he moved to the United States, and settled in San Francisco. In San Francisco, Wells started lecturing on his travel experiences. Wells led expeditions to Kenya, Tanganyika, Mt. Ararat, Panama, Mexico, Japan, Morocco, Syria, Egypt, Palestine, India and Manchuria. In 1932, Wells married his second wife, the former Zetta Robart, after divorcing his first wife, Laura T. Wells, in Mexico. Robart had been Wells' production manager. In 1934, Wells' first wife sued Ms. Robart, alleging misconduct and alienation of affections. In the early 1930s, Wells and his wife travelled to Soviet Russia, on a trip that would take him to the borders of Turkey, in search of the remains of Noah's Ark. On the trip, Wells observed the

Soviet famine of 1932-33 The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until it dissolved in 1991. During its existence, it was the largest country by area ...

, which would eventually kill millions of Russians. Wells also encountered a group living in the Carpathian mountains, which still had chainmail left over from the Crusades. Wells recorded his observations of the trip in his book, ''Kapoot: The Narrative of a Journey From Leningrad to Mount Ararat in Search of Noah's Ark''. In 1937, the couple built a house, ''"Mandalay"'' on Rebecca Road in Southampton Parish, in Bermuda (initially occupying ''"Point House"''), where Wells' daughter, Frances Carveth Wells was the 1937 Easter Queen, dividing their time between Bermuda and the United States thereafter. Wells' first wife also resided in Bermuda (at ''"Olivet"'', on Pitts' Bay Road in

Pembroke Parish Pembroke Parish is one of the nine parishes of Bermuda. It is named after English aristocrat William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke (1580–1630). It occupies most of the short peninsula which juts from the central north coast of Bermuda's main ...

) at the time of his death in 1957. In the 1930s and 40s, Wells and his wife began producing films concerning their travels. They jointly produced ''The Jungle Killer'' (1932), ''Russia Today'' (1933), and ''Australia Wild and Strange''. In his book, ''North of Singapore'', written in 1939, Wells documented Japanese attitudes towards the United States and China on the eve of

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. On that same trip to the Far East, in 1939, Wells adopted a talking mina bird—which he named "Raffles." Raffles appeared with Wells on many radio programs and at theaters. He is credited with helping Wells sell more than $1 million of war bonds in the United States during the Second World War. Wells lectured widely in the United States, Britain, Norway and Sweden. In 1942, he was a civilian orientation lecturer for servicemen about to go abroad. On 9 June 1946 the couple produced one of the world's first television shows, ''

Geographically Speaking ''Geographically Speaking'' was an American travel series that debuted on June 9, 1946, on NBC, and aired Sundays at 8:15 pm EST immediately following the game show '' Face to Face''. Originating at WNBT-TV in New York City, the weekly 15-minut ...

'', which featured home movies of their travels. The show was not recorded, since recording technology did not yet exist. The series ended in December 1946, when the couple ran out of home movies. At the time of his death, in 1957, Wells and his wife were producing a local television show in New York, called ''Carveth Wells Explores the World''.

Books by Carveth Wells

* *(1925) ''In Coldest Africa'' *(1925) ''A Jungle Man and His Animals'' *(1931) ''Congo to the Mountains of the Moon: Adventure!'' *(1932) ''Adventure'' *(1932) ''Let's Do the Mediterranean'' * *(1933) ''Light on the Dark Continent'' *(1934) ''Exploring the World With Carveth Wells'' * * *(1939) ''Around the World with Bobby and Betty'' *(1940) ''North Of Singapore'' *(1941) ''Raff, the Jungle Bird:The Story of Our Talking Mynah'' * * *(1954) ''The Road To Shalimar''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wells, Carveth 1887 births 1957 deaths 20th-century British writers People from Surrey British travel writers British adventure books English television people English explorers British expatriates in Malaysia Alumni of the University of London