British explorer
Virginia Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes
|
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![](//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/09/GinnyFiennesPhoto.jpg/220px-GinnyFiennesPhoto.jpg) |
Born
| Virginia Frances Pepper
(
1947-07-09
)
9 July 1947
|
---|
Died
| 20 February 2004
(2004-02-20)
(aged 56)
|
---|
Occupation(s)
| Explorer, author, farmer
|
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Spouse
|
|
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Awards
| Polar Medal
|
---|
Virginia Frances, Lady Twisleton-Wykeham-Fiennes
(
nee
Pepper; 9 July 1947 ? 20 February 2004), known as
Ginny Fiennes
, was an English
explorer
.
[1]
She was the first woman to be awarded the
Polar Medal
,
[2]
and the first woman to be voted in to join the Antarctic Club in recognition of her research work for the
British Antarctic Survey
and
University of Sheffield
into very low frequency radio propagation. Her husband was adventurer
Ranulph Fiennes
.
[3]
[4]
Early life
[
edit
]
She was born
Virginia Frances Pepper
in
Godalming
,
Surrey
in 1947. Her family owned chalk quarries in Amberley on the South Downs: now
Amberley Museum & Heritage Centre
. When she was 9, she met the 12-year-old Ranulph Fiennes, her future husband and they got married in 1970.
[5]
After school, she took up deep-sea diving and was recruited to work for two years in
Wester Ross
for the
National Trust for Scotland
. She was also trained at the
Royal Aircraft Establishment
, Farnborough, took marine radio officer courses and joined the
Women's Royal Army Corps
Territorials
.
[6]
Career
[
edit
]
In 1968, she organised the first ascent of the longest river in the world, the
River Nile
, by prototype
hovercraft
. In 1971, she organised the first transnavigation of
British Columbia
, entirely by river. In 1972, she was commissioned by
Woman's Own
magazine to live for two months with an
Omani
family, and later organised four expeditions with her husband to locate the lost
frankincense
city of
Ubar
in
Dhofar
.
[7]
In 1972, she devised a plan to
circumnavigate
the world along its polar axis, and ten years later her
Transglobe Expedition
team became the first to reach both poles, to cross
Antarctica
and the Arctic Ocean, through the
North West Passage
.
[8]
In 2020 the Government of the
British Antarctic Territory
honoured the contribution she made to "furthering the understanding, protection and management of Antarctica" by
naming
Mount Fiennes
.
[9]
Author
[
edit
]
In 1984 she released the non-fiction book
Bothie the Polar Dog
.
[10]
Co-authored with her husband, Sir Ranulph Fiennes, it describes the adventures of her
Jack Russell Terrier
named
Bothie
who was the "only dog ever to set paw on both the South and North poles".
[11]
Family life
[
edit
]
In the 1980s, she moved to
Exmoor National Park
and began to raise a herd of pedigree
Aberdeen Angus
cattle and a flock of black
Welsh Mountain sheep
, becoming a highly proficient hill farmer on one of the highest working farms in the South West.
In November 2003, she was found to be suffering from
stomach cancer
, diagnosed on the day after her husband returned from running seven marathons in seven days on seven continents. She died on 20 February 2004, aged 56.
[6]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"Virginia Fiennes"
.
The Times
.
Archived
from the original on 2 October 2022
. Retrieved
2 October
2022
.
- ^
"Page 11713 | Supplement 50650, 8 September 1986 | London Gazette | The Gazette"
.
thegazette.co.uk
.
Archived
from the original on 3 October 2022
. Retrieved
18 February
2022
.
- ^
"Lady Virginia Fiennes, wife of explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes and first woman to receive the Polar Medal, ..."
The Herald
. 25 February 2004.
Archived
from the original on 4 October 2022
. Retrieved
4 October
2022
.
- ^
Riffenburgh, Beau (2004).
"Obituaries"
(PDF)
.
Polar Record
.
40
(4): 368?370.
doi
:
10.1017/S0032247404003924
.
S2CID
233316053
.
Archived
(PDF)
from the original on 3 May 2022
. Retrieved
20 October
2022
.
- ^
Who's Who
A & C Black
1971 p1045
ISBN
0-7136-1140-5
- ^
a
b
Shepard, Oliver (24 February 2004).
"Virginia Fiennes"
.
The Guardian
.
Archived
from the original on 18 October 2022
. Retrieved
2 October
2022
.
- ^
finally achieving success in 1990: 1992,
Debrett's
People of Today p. 2047
ISBN
1-870520-09-2
- ^
"BIOGRAPHIES"
.
Transglobe Expedition
.
Archived
from the original on 2 October 2022
. Retrieved
2 October
2022
.
- ^
"Polar scientists and staff awarded place names in Antarctica"
.
British Antarctic Survey
.
Archived
from the original on 2 October 2022
. Retrieved
2 October
2022
.
- ^
Fiennes, Virginia; Fiennes, Ranulph (1984).
Bothie the Polar Dog
. Hodder and Stoughton.
ISBN
0-340-36319-3
.
- ^
Jensen, Gregory (6 January 1985).
"Made 50,000-Mile Journey With Expedition : Bothie, the Only Dog to Visit Both Poles"
.
Los Angeles Times
.
Archived
from the original on 15 October 2022
. Retrieved
15 October
2022
.