Editing Clements Markham (section)

== Death and legacy ==
[[File:Sir Clements Robert Markham Bust.jpg|thumb|upright|Bust of Markham by [[F.&nbsp;W. Pomeroy]]]]
On 29 January 1916, while reading in bed by candlelight, Markham set fire to the bedclothes and was overcome by smoke. He died the following day.<ref name= Baigent/> His last diary entry, a few days earlier, had recorded a visit from Peter Markham Scott.<ref name= AMH361>A. Markham, pp.&nbsp;361–365.</ref>

The family received tributes from King [[George V]], who acknowledged the debt the country owed to Markham's life work of study and research; from the Royal Geographical Society and the other learned bodies with which Markham had been associated; from the Naval Commander-in-Chief at Devonport; and from [[Fridtjof Nansen]], the Norwegian Arctic explorer. Other messages were received from France, Italy, Denmark, Sweden, the United States, and from Arequipa in Peru.<ref name= AMH361/>

More critical assessments of Markham's life and work were to follow. [[Hugh Robert Mill]], Shackleton's first biographer and for many years the RGS librarian, referred to the dictatorial manner in which Markham had run the Society.<ref name= Baigent/> In time, questions would be raised about the accuracy of some of his Hakluyt translations, and about the evidence of haste in the preparation of other publications.<ref name= Baigent/> On a personal level he had made enemies as well as friends; [[Frank Debenham]], the geologist who served with both Scott and Shackleton, called Markham "a dangerous old man",<ref>Riffenburgh, p.&nbsp;293.</ref> while William Speirs Bruce wrote of Markham's "malicious opposition to the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition".<ref name= Speak130>Speak, pp.&nbsp;130–131.</ref>

Bruce's colleague [[Robert Rudmose-Brown]] went further, calling Markham "that old fool and humbug".<ref>Speak, p.&nbsp;123.</ref> These protestations reflected Markham's protective attitude towards Scott; according to Bruce, "Scott was Markham's protégé, and Markham thought it necessary, in order to uphold Scott, that I should be obliterated". He added that "Scott and I were always good friends, in spite of Markham."<ref name= Speak130/> Markham's writings on naval history have been criticised by modern scholars due to his nationalistic exaggeration of English sailors' achievements in the [[Age of Discoveries]].<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Maura|first1=Juan Francisco|title=El mito de "John Cabot"construcción británica para reclamar la soberanía de Norteamérica|journal=Cuadernos Hispanoamericanos|date=2016|issue=788|pages=4–25|url=http://www.aecid.es/Centro-Documentacion/Documentos/Publicaciones%20AECID/WEB_CHA_788_2016.pdf|access-date=5 November 2016|archive-date=28 September 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190928031523/http://www.aecid.es/Centro-Documentacion/Documentos/Publicaciones%2520AECID/WEB_CHA_788_2016.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref>

It has been suggested that Markham's prejudices about polar travel, particularly his belief in the "nobility" of [[manhauling]], had been passed to Scott, to the detriment of all future British expeditions.<ref>Jones, pp.&nbsp;58, 72.</ref> Mill's measured opinion, that Markham was "an enthusiast rather than a scholar", has been asserted as a fair summary of his strengths and weaknesses, and as the basis for his influence on the discipline of geography in the late-19th and early-20th centuries.<ref name= Baigent/> He is commemorated by [[Mount Markham]], {{coord|82|51|S|161|21|E|type:mountain}}, in the Transantarctic range, discovered and named by Scott on his southern march during the ''Discovery'' expedition in 1902.<ref>Crane, p.&nbsp;213.</ref>

The [[Markham River]] in Papua New Guinea was named after him;<ref>Souter, p.&nbsp;77.</ref> Carsten Borchgrevink discovered and named Markham Island in the Ross Sea during his 1900 expedition,<ref>{{cite web|title= Markham Island|url= http://data.aad.gov.au/aadc/gaz/display_name.cfm?gaz_id=128441|website = Australian Antarctic Division|access-date= 27 April 2009}}</ref> a gesture that was not, however, acknowledged by Markham.<ref>E. Huxley, p.&nbsp;25.</ref> The name lives on in Lima, Peru, through [[Markham College]], a private co-educational school.<ref>{{cite web|title= Welcome to Markham|website = Markham College, Lima, Peru|url= http://www.markham.edu.pe/about.cfm|archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20071214175232/http://www.markham.edu.pe/about.cfm|archive-date= 14 December 2007|access-date= 23 November 2015|df= dmy-all}}</ref> [[Minna Bluff]], a promontory extending into the [[Ross Ice Shelf]], was named by Scott for Lady Markham.<ref>Preston, p.&nbsp;141.</ref> The plant genus ''[[Markhamia]]'' was named after Markham by the German botanist [[Berthold Carl Seemann]] in 1863.<ref>{{cite journal| journal=Journal of Botany, British and Foreign| volume=1 |url=https://archive.org/stream/journalofbotanyb01londuoft#page/n253/mode/2up/| title=Revision of the natural order Bignoniaceae|pages=225–228|author=Seemann, Berthold|year=1863}}</ref>

Markham's estate was valued for [[probate]] purposes at £7,740 (2008 equivalent £376,000).<ref name= Baigent/><ref name= MW/> He was survived by his wife Minna, to whom Albert Hastings Markham's 1917 biography of Sir Clements is dedicated. Markham's only child, May, avoided public life and devoted herself to church work in the [[East End of London]]. According to the family's entry in ''[[Burke's Landed Gentry]]'' she died in 1926.<ref>A. Markham, p.&nbsp;342.</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia|title= Markham family|encyclopedia= Burke's Landed Gentry, 18th edition|volume= 3|page= 611|publisher= Burke's Peerage Ltd|location= London|year= 1972}}</ref>