Heinrich Barth
Patrons Medal of the Royal Geographical Society
Heinrich Barth was born in Hamburg onFebruary 1821. He was the third child of Johann Christoph Heinrich Barth and his wife Charlotte Karoline ne Zadow. Johann had come from a relatively poor background but had built up a successful trading business. Both parents were orthodox Lutherans and they expected their children to conform to their strict ideas on morality and selfdiscipline. From the age of eleven Barth attended the prestigious high school, the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums, in Hamburg. He was very studious but not popular with his classmates. He excelled at languages and taught himself some Arabic. Barth left school agedin 1839 and immediately enrolled at the University of Berlin where he attended courses given by the geographer Karl Ritter, the classical scholar August Bckh and the historian Jakob Grimm. After his first year he interrupted his studies and went on a tour of Italy visiting Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples and Sicily, returning to Germany in the middle of
Source: Wikipedia