Lake Victoria Lake Victoria Lake Victoria (' in Luo; ' in Uganda; "" in Kinyarwanda and some Bantu languages) is one of the African Great Lakes. The lake was named after Queen Victoria by the explorer John Hanning Speke, the first Briton to document it. Speke accomplished this in 1858, while on an expedition with Richard Francis Burton to locate the source of the Nile River. With a surface area of approximately , Lake Victoria is Africa's largest lake by area, the world's largest tropical lake, and the world's second largest fresh water lake by surface area after Lake Superior in North
John Speke (1442-1518) John Speke (1442-1518) Sir John Speke (1442–1518) of Whitelackington, Somerset and of Heywood in the parish of Wembworthy and of Bramford Speke both in Devon, was Sheriff of Devon in 1517 and a Member of Parliament (1477). He was knighted in 1501. His monument is the "Speke Chantry" in Exeter Cathedral in which survives his recumbent effigy. He was born in about 1442, the son and heir of Sir John Speke (died 1444) (buried at Bramford Speke) of Wembworthy and Bramford Speke, Devon, by his wife Alice Beauchamp (died 1445/46) (who survived him and remarried to Henry Hull) daughter and