Samuel White Baker was an English explorer, officer, naturalist, big game hunter, engineer, author, and abolitionist. In addition, he held the titles of Pasha and Major-General in both the Ottoman Empire and Egypt. From April 1869 to August 1873, he was Governor-General of the Equatorial Nile Basin (now South Sudan and Northern Uganda), which he named the Province of Equatoria. He is most known as the first European to reach Lake Albert, an explorer of the Nile and the interior of Central Africa, and a big game hunter in Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. Baker wrote numerous books and published papers. Samuel White Baker was born on June 8, 1821, in London, to a rich commercial family. His father, Samuel Baker Sr., was a sugar merchant, banker, and ship owner from Thorngrove, Worcestershire, with business interests in the West Indies. His younger brother, Col. Valentine Baker, sometimes known as "Baker Pasha," was a British hero in the African Cape Colony, the Crimean War, Ceylon, and the Balkans before being dishonoured by a civilian scandal. Valentine had been successful in gaining popularity in the Ottoman Empire, particularly during the Russian-Turkish War in the Caucasus and the Sudan War from Egypt.