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  1. Authors
  2. Christopher Ralph Bagnold

The son of a Colonel in the Royal Engineers, RALPH ALGER BAGNOLD was born at Devonport on 3 April 1896. Educated at Malvern College, he entered The Royal Military Academy, Woolwich; he was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1915. In 1932, he staged the first recorded East-to-West crossing of the Libyan Desert. Leaving the Army in 1935 to concentrate on exploration, Bagnold immediately volunteered for further service upon the outbreak of the Second World War. He became well known as the founder of the Long Range Desert Group in 1940. After the war Bagnold, who had reached the rank of Brigadier, continued to work in the field of the geological science, and he published academic papers into his nineties. He died at Hither Green on 28 May 1990 at the age of 94.