The Great Wall of Two Williams: Two Journeys, One Century Mission
William Geil, the first person to explore the Great Wall of China, photograph its various morphologies and architectures, and document his experiences in a book about the structure, died unexpectedly, 100 years ago in 1925. His wife, Constance, buried him in the local Doylestown cemetery. His headstone reads ‘William Edgar Geil, October 1st, 1865 – April 23rd, 1925’ — and nothing else. Constance, so bereaved, sealed up her husband’s study. It remained locked, until 1959. After Constance’s death, her daughter readied the family mansion to sell: a house contents sale was held, and the details of the first Great Wall of China exploration from one end to the other, were sold, disseminated — and seemingly lost —- until now.
‘The Great Wall of Two Williams: Two Journeys, One Century Mission’ is the decades-long story telling the revival of William Geil’s legacy, by William Lindesay OBE, a Great Wall explorer himself.
William Geil traversed the line of the Great Wall’s ruins in 1908, from East to West. William Lindesay traversed the Great Wall, on foot, from West to East, in 1987. The two men met ‘coincidentally’, by choosing to take photographs in the same place — 79 years apart. But the Wall view wasn’t quite the same in the later photograph. Much of it had been razed to the ground. This perchance ‘meeting’ of the two explorers by the placing of their photographs together as a pair, showing changes, made Lindesay realise the latent importance of Geil’s greater archive: it preserved a more complete and longer Great Wall than the one he had ‘just’ traversed.
Just a few years before the centenary of William Geil’s Great Wall journey, starting 2003, Lindesay set out on his mission to utilize Geil’s archive in a bid to awaken China’s consciousness by evidencing how the 20th century had unleashed a procession of onslaughts that had accelerated the ruinous condition of the Wall. He ended up spending five years searching for the views of the monument that the veteran explorer had captured in all of its pre-war and pre-revolution glory. His goal was to show what had been lost, in the hope that ‘their’ results — ‘then’ and ‘now’ photo pairs, placed side-by-side — would move minds and muscles enough to inspire systematic conservation efforts in the 21st Century, in order to offset the gamut of tragedies that had befallen the Wall during the 20th.
This mammoth ‘rephotographic’ work proved to be only half of the two Williams’ cooperative story. Lindesay had become increasingly concerned about by the neglect of Geil’s legacy. How, why, he wondered, had William Geil’s achievement been overlooked, seemingly forgotten? With the centenary of Geil’s historic journey less than six months away, in summer 2008, he intensified his efforts to find members of the Geil family, if any, and, most importantly, tried to discover what had happened to the explorers elusive field notes, photographs and maps.
Lindesay’s first breakthrough came as a result of ‘e-mailshots’— his random method came up trumps paid as he made contact with the grandsons of William Geil. And rather than Lindesay ‘finding’ Geil’s materials himself, the materials ‘found’ him, thanks to a large online presence of reports about the influential ‘Wall of Two Williams’ rephotography project in China. Lindesay was thus alerted to the donation of boxes of Geil’s records and possessions to the Doylestown Historical Society, and he so he embarked on his pilgrimage to the Pennsylvanian town.
In June 2008 Lindesay organized a commemorative ceremony at Geil’s graveside, and became the first and only Great Wall Studies scholar to examine the papers. Exhibitions across China followed, as did books published on three continents.
A century after William Geil’s death in 1925, William Lindesay will be in the United States in June 2025 to deliver this fascinating ‘international’ Great Wall story. His vivid presentation features engaging storytelling, both stunning — and shocking — photographs, and moving videos — all to honour the legacy of William Geil (1865-1925), a forgotten great American explorer.
This in-person event at the Explorers Club Headquarters will include an audience Q&A.
RESERVATIONS
This will be an in-person lecture at Explorers Club Headquarters.
In-person tickets are $20 for Members, and $35 for the General Public.
Check-in will begin at 6:00 pm, with a beer and wine reception from 6:00 – 7:00 pm
William Lindesay
William Lindesay OBE has been based in China permanently for 35 years in order to explore, research and make contributions to protecting the Great Wall. He has authored 10 books on the subject, published by Hodder & Stoughton, Harvard University Press, Oxford University Press and Penguin Viking, among others. Lindesay is a recipient of China’s highest honours awarded to foreigners, namely The Friendship Award and The Beijjng Great Wall Friendship Award. From the UK he was made an OBE (Officer, Order of the British Empire) by HM Queen Elizabeth II. For his research work he won The Special Award of The Royal Society for Asian Affairs. For his conservation and presentation work he was recently named a luminary member of ‘The Explorers Club 50, Class of 2022’.
