EXPLORER

St John Philby

1885 - 1960

Photo of St John Philby

Icon of person St John Philby

Harry St John Bridger Philby, CIE (3 April 1885 – 30 September 1960), also known as Jack Philby or Sheikh Abdullah (Arabic: الشيخ عبدالله), was a British Arabist, advisor, explorer, writer, and a colonial intelligence officer who served as an advisor to King Abdulaziz ibn Saud, the founder of Saudi Arabia. As he states in his autobiography, he "became something of a fanatic" and in 1908 "the first Socialist to join the Indian Civil Service". After studying Oriental languages at the University of Cambridge, he was posted to Lahore in the Punjab in 1908, acquiring fluency in Urdu, Punjabi, Baluchi, Persian and eventually Arabic. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of St John Philby has received more than 582,161 page views. His biography is available in 19 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 17 in 2019). St John Philby is the 163rd most popular explorer (up from 244th in 2019), the 9th most popular biography from Sri Lanka (up from 14th in 2019) and the most popular Sri Lankan Explorer.

Memorability Metrics

  • 580k

    Page Views (PV)

  • 62.98

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 19

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 4.95

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 2.12

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Among EXPLORERS

Among explorers, St John Philby ranks 163 out of 498. Before him are Alexandrine Tinné, Ahmad ibn Rustah, Isabelle Eberhardt, Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir, Antoine Thomson d'Abbadie, and Atlantic voyage of the predecessor of Mansa Musa. After him are Ruy López de Villalobos, Gustav Nachtigal, Luís Vaz de Torres, Niccolò de' Conti, James Bruce, and Lancelotto Malocello.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1885, St John Philby ranks 76. Before him are Soemu Toyoda, Jules Romains, Viktor Schauberger, Agustín Barrios, Princess Victoria Adelaide of Schleswig-Holstein, and John Edensor Littlewood. After him are Camille Chautemps, Dora Pejačević, Frank Jack Fletcher, Harlow Shapley, Jacques Feyder, and Bess Truman. Among people deceased in 1960, St John Philby ranks 57. Before him are Salvatore Ferragamo, Sylvia Pankhurst, Antonie Pannekoek, Abram Ioffe, Alexandre Benois, and Maurice de Broglie. After him are Hans Wilsdorf, Abdul Rahman of Negeri Sembilan, A. L. Kroeber, José Antonio Aguirre, Bruno Loerzer, and Edwin Fischer.

Others Born in 1885

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Others Deceased in 1960

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In Sri Lanka

Among people born in Sri Lanka, St John Philby ranks 9 out of 51. Before him are Ananda Coomaraswamy (1877), Ranil Wickremesinghe (1949), Anagarika Dharmapala (1864), William Chester Minor (1834), Tony Hoare (1934), and Aryadeva (200). After him are Mahinda Rajapaksa (1945), S. W. R. D. Bandaranaike (1899), Chandrika Kumaratunga (1945), Jack Churchill (1906), Heather Armitage (1933), and J. R. Jayewardene (1906).

Others born in Sri Lanka

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Among EXPLORERS In Sri Lanka

Among explorers born in Sri Lanka, St John Philby ranks 1. 

Sri Lankan born Explorers

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