Claude Reignier Conder (29 December 1848 – 16 February 1910) was a British Army officer, explorer and antiquarian. He was a great-great-grandson of Louis-François Roubiliac and grandson of editor and author Josiah Conder.Claude Reignier Conder at Mitchell Families Online, access date 15 December 2019
Life Conder was educated at University College London and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich. He became a lieutenant in the Corps of Royal Engineers in 1870. He carried out survey work in Palestine in 1872–1874, latterly in conjunction with Lt Kitchener, later Lord Kitchener, whom he had met at school,British Empire. Kitchener and was seconded to the Palestine Exploration Fund from 1875 to 1878 and again in 1881 and 1882, when he was promoted to captain. He retired with the rank of colonel in 1904.
Conder joined the expedition to Egypt in 1882, under Sir Garnet Wolseley, to suppress the rebellion of Urabi Pasha. He was appointed a deputy assistant adjutant and quartermaster-general on the staff of the intelligence department. In Egypt his perfect knowledge of Arabic and of Eastern people proved most useful. He was present at the action of Kassassin, the Battle of Tel el-Kebir, and the advance to Cairo, but then, seized with typhoid fever, he was invalided home. For his services he received the war medal with clasp for Tel el-Kebir, the Khedive's bronze star and the fourth class of the Order of the Medjidie.
While surveying the area of Safed in July 1875, Conder and his party were attacked by local residents and Conder sustained a serious head injury which left him bedridden for a while and unable to return to Palestine.H.H. Kitchener, An Account of the Safed Attack, Palestine Exploration Quarterly Statement 7.4 (Oct. 1875), pp. 195–199 The work of surveying the country of Palestine commenced again only in late February 1877, without Conder.H.H. Kitchener, Survey of Galilee,Palestine Exploration Quarterly Statement (1878), pp. 159–174.
In recent years Conder's reputation have been linked to the notorious Jack the Ripper in 1888 London, England.accessed 2 June 2026, https://www.casebook.org/ripper_media/book_reviews/non-fiction/cjmorley/39.html|Claude Reignier Conder The suggestion is as a Middle East military colleague of Sir Charles Warren, Conder perpetrated the Ripper murders while attempting to retrieve ill-gotten antiquities. The conjecture is specious and not supported by other researchers.
Publications 1878: Tent Work in Palestine 1879: Judas Maccabæus, and the Jewish War of Independence 1880: Memoires: The Survey of Western and Eastern Palestine 1883: Heth and Moab, Explorations in Syria in 1881 and 1882 1886: Syrian Stone-lore, Or, The Monumental History of Palestine 1887: Altaic Hieroglyphs and Hittite Inscriptions 1889: Palestine 1889: The Survey of Eastern Palestine, Memoirs of the Topography, Orography, Hydrography, Archaeology, Etc. 1893: The Tell Amarna Tablets 1896: The Bible and the East 1897: The Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem 1898: The Hittites and their Language 1900: The Hebrew Tragedy 1902: The First Bible 1909: The City of Jerusalem
Books (with online access) Conder, Claude Reignier (1879) Tent Work in Palestine, vol 1 Conder, Claude Reignier (1879) Tent Work in Palestine, vol 2 (The full text, archive.org, Can download PDF) (The full text, archive.org, Can download PDF) Conder, Claude Reignier and H.H. Kitchener (1881): The Survey of Western Palestine: memoirs of the topography, orography, hydrography, and archaeology. London:Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund. vol 3 The full text, archive.org, Can download PDF.
Articles (with online access)
References
External links
Profile at PEF website Claude Reignier Conder at Find a Grave