science

Robin Hanbury-Tenison

Robin Hanbury-Tenison is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Robin Hanbury-Tenison rather than just read about it. In short: Airling Robin Hanbury-Tenison (born 7 May 1936) is an explorer based in Cornwall. He is Founder of the charity Survival International and was previously Chief Executive of The Countryside Alliance.

Key takeaways

Robin Hanbury-Tenison belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Robin Hanbury-Tenison to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Robin Hanbury-Tenison from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Airling Robin Hanbury-Tenison (born 7 May 1936) is an explorer based in Cornwall. He is Founder of the charity Survival International and was previously Chief Executive of The Countryside Alliance.

Early life and education The youngest of five children born to Gerald Evan Farquhar Tenison, a Major in the 3rd Dragoon Guards, and his wife Ruth Julia Margarette Hanbury of the Pontypool Park Estate, Robin grew up on the Tenison family's historic Anglo-Irish estate Lough Bawn in Castleblayney, County Monaghan, Ireland. He was educated at Eton College and Magdalen College, Oxford.

Personal life In 1959, he married Marika Hopkinson. She became well known for her cookery books. They had two children, Lucy (b. 1960) and Rupert (b. 1970). Marika died in 1982. Hanbury-Tenison later married Louella (née Williams), with whom he had another son, Merlin.

Career In 1957 Hanbury-Tenison was the first person to travel overland by jeep from London to Sri Lanka (then known as Ceylon). In 1958 he and Richard Mason became the first to cross South America overland at its widest point. In 1964–65 he made the first river crossing of South America from north to south from the Orinoco to Buenos Aires (at first with Sebastian Snow). In 1968 he took part in the Geographical magazine's Amazonas Expedition by hovercraft from Manaus in Brazil to the Republic of Trinidad.

Survival International Discussions with the ethnobotanist Conrad Gorinsky led to the foundation of the charity Survival International. In 1971, as Chairman of Survival (and with Marika), he visited 33 Indian tribes in Brazil at the invitation of the Brazilian government and reported on their condition. In 1977–78 he led the Royal Geographical Society's Gunung Mulu expedition to Sarawak, the Society's largest expedition at that time, taking 115 scientists into the rainforest for 15 months.

Farming From 1960 to 2018 Hanbury-Tenison farmed over 2,000 acres of hill farm on Bodmin Moor in Cornwall with sheep and cattle, diversified with Angora goats, red deer and wild boar from Russia, and later farming energy from wind, solar, water and biomass. The farm has been farmed by Merlin Hanbury-Tenison since 2018 who aims for greater sustainability.

Later career In 1982 and 1983 he organised Capital Radio's Venture Days in Battersea Park. From 1995 to 1998 he was CEO of the British Field Sports Society, now the Countryside Alliance. He organised the Countryside Rally, which brought 130,000 people to Hyde Park in July 1997, and the Countryside March when 300,000 marched through London in 1998. In 2015–16 he celebrated his 80th year by undertaking eight challenges, starting with the London Marathon, which raised over £80,000 for Survival International. In 2020 he spent seven weeks in hospital with COVID-19 before returning home to celebrate his 84th birthday. In 2026, Hanbury-Tenison and his son Merlin pedalled a water-bike along the river Thames from Oxford to Richmond, to raise funding for a research station to study Britain's temperate rainforest.

Awards and achievements 1961 RGS Ness Award 1965–95 Commissioner of Income Tax 1968–82 RGS Council Member, 1982–86 Vice President 1969–81 Co-founder and Chairman of Survival International 1971 Winston Churchill Memorial Fellow 1979 Patron's Medal 1980 Winner Krug Award for Excellence 1981 President of Survival International 1981 Appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) 1984–2015 President Camel Valley and Bodmin Moor Protection Society 1988–95 President Cornwall Wildlife Trust 1998 Farmers Club Cup for outstanding contribution to farming, agriculture and the countryside 1999 Chairman Friends of Conservation 1999 International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation Personality of the Year 2001 RSGS Mungo Park Medal 2000 Pio Manzù Medal (Italy) 2000 CLA Contribution to the Countryside Award 2001–05 President Rain Forest Club 2003 Patron of the Countryside Alliance 2003–2011 Deputy Lieutenant for the County of Cornwall 2009 President Cornwall Red Squirrel Project 2012 Best Large Scale Renewable Energy Scheme in Cornwall Award for Cabilla Manor 2013 Exhibition of photographs of tribal people and places, National Theatre 2014 Honorary Consul for Kosovo (Cornwall)

Books The Rough and the Smooth (1969) A Question of Survival for the Indians of Brazil (1973) A Pattern of Peoples: A Journey Among the Tribes of Indonesia's Outer Islands (1975) Mulu: Rain Forest (1980) Aborigines of the Amazon Rain Forest (Peoples of the Wild) (1982) Worlds Apart: An Explorer's Life (1984) White Horses over France: From the Camargue to Cornwall (1985) A Ride Along the Great Wall (1987) Fragile Eden: A Ride Through New Zealand (1989) Spanish Pilgrimage: A Canter to St. James (1990) The Oxford Book of Exploration (1993) Mysterious China (1995) Chinese Adventure: A Ride Along the Great Wall (2004) Worlds Within: Reflections in the Sand (2005) The Seventy Great Journeys in History (2006) Land of Eagles: Riding Through Europe's Forgotten Country (2009) The Great Explorers (2010) The Modern Explorers, with Robert Twigger (2013) Echoes of a Vanished World: A Traveller's Lifetime in Pictures (2013) Beauty Freely Given: A Universal Truth: Artifacts from the Collection of Robin Hanbury-Tenison, with Christopher John Bowden (2013) Finding Eden (2017) Taming the Four Horsemen (2020)

For children Source:

Jake's Escape (1996) Jake's Treasure (1997) Jake's Safari (1998)

Films A Time for Survival. Westward (1972) Mysteries of the Green Mountain. BBC (1978) Antiques at Home. BBC (1984) White Horses over France. BBC/FR3 (1985) Great Wall of China (1987) Odyssey series, presenter BBC (1988) Siberian Tigers (1994) Collector's Lot BBC (1998) The Lost World of Mulu. C4 (1999) Reflections in the Sand. Discovery (2000) Testament. Carlton (2000) Survival To The Brink and Back. BBC by Here Now films (2020)

References

External links

Website Cabilla Manor website WMN 8 Challenges aArticle

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Robin Hanbury-Tenison

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Robin Hanbury-Tenison claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Robin Hanbury-Tenison before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Robin Hanbury-Tenison ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Robin Hanbury-Tenison

In research: Robin Hanbury-Tenison appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Robin Hanbury-Tenison in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Robin Hanbury-Tenison is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1936 births, 20th-century Irish farmers, 21st-century English farmers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Robin Hanbury-Tenison outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Robin Hanbury-Tenison in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Robin Hanbury-Tenison means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Robin Hanbury-Tenison out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Robin Hanbury-Tenison in simple terms?

Airling Robin Hanbury-Tenison (born 7 May 1936) is an explorer based in Cornwall. He is Founder of the charity Survival International and was previously Chief Executive of The Countryside Alliance.

Why does Robin Hanbury-Tenison matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Robin Hanbury-Tenison?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Robin Hanbury-Tenison.