Sir Everard Ferdinand im Thurn, KCMG, KBE, CB (1852 – October 9, 1932) was an author, explorer, botanist, photographer and British colonial administrator. He was Governor of Fiji 1904-1910.

 

Im Thurn was educated at Marlborough College, Oxford University, Edinburgh University, and Sydney University. His first book, dedicated to his headmaster, was a study of The Birds of Marlborough (1870).[1] After his education, im Thurm travelled to British Guiana—called Guyana since its independence from Great Britain—to become (at the age of 25) the Curator of the British Guiana Museum from 1877. He remained in this post until 1882, and later became a Stipendiary Magistrate in Pomeroon.

 

In December 1884 he led the first successful expedition to the summit of Mount Roraima, in Venezuela's Gran Sabana region, along with Harry Perkins, an Assistant Crown Surveyor who was also living in British Guiana. He was a keen photographer and author of several works related to his expedition to Roraima, which were published in scientific journals, including: "The Botany of Roraima Expedition of 1884: being notes on the plants observed; with a list of the species collected, and determinations of those that are new" (Linnean Society, 1887), and Among the Indians of Guiana: being sketches, chiefly anthropologic from the interior of British Guiana, etc.", which includes detailed observations of the Pemon Indians of Venezuela.

 

Im Thurn went on to become a government agent in British Guiana from 1891 to 1899, and was employed on the Venezuelan boundary commission 1897-99, for which he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) in 1900.[2] He spent a couple of years back in the United Kingdom, holding several positions from 1899 to 1901, including 1st Class Clerk and later Principal Clerk in the Colonial Office. In July 1901 he moved to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where he was appointed Colonial Secretary[3] and Lieutenant-Governor.[4] He ended his colonial career in Fiji where he was governor from 1904 to 1910, during which he was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George (KCMG) in 1905.

 

He was a well-respected figure in the scientific circles of his time, serving as the President of the Royal Anthropological Institute 1919–1920 and being made an Honorary Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford.

 

In 1895 he married Hannah C Lorimer, daughter of Professor James Lorimer, of the University of Edinburgh.