The lake was named after Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, by John Hanning Speke, the first European to discover this lake.

The lake was first sighted by a European in 1858 when the British explorer John Hanning Speke reached its southern shore while on his journey with Richard Francis Burton to explore central Africa and locate the Great Lakes.

Burton, who had been recovering from illness at the time and resting further south on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, was outraged that Speke claimed to have proved his discovery to have been the true source of the Nile, which Burton regarded as still unsettled.

John Hanning Speke ( 4 May 1827 – 15 September 1864 ) was an officer in the British Indian Army who made three exploratory expeditions to Africa and who is most associated with the search for the source of the Nile.

The party was attacked and Burton and Speke were both severely wounded.

Speke was captured and stabbed several times with spears before he was able to free himself and escape.

After an arduous journey, the two became the first Europeans to reach Lake Tanganyika ( although Speke was still blind at this point and could not properly see the lake ).

A further rift was caused when Speke was chosen to lead a subsequent expedition instead of Burton.

Speke then sailed down the Nile and he was reunited with Grant.

A debate was planned between the two before the geographical section of the British Association in Bath on 18 September 1864, but Speke had died the previous afternoon from a self-inflicted gunshot wound while hunting at Neston Park in Wiltshire.

Speke was buried in Dowlish Wake, Somerset, the ancestral home of the Speke family.

Speke was also portrayed in four of the six episodes of the 1971 BBC television mini-series “ Search for the Nile .”

Mount Speke in the Ruwenzori Range, Uganda was named in honour of John Speke, as an early European explorer of this region.

On the one hand, the famous Gorham judgment was the outcome of his refusal to give the living of Brampford Speke to George Cornelius Gorham ( 1787 – 1857

Built in part of the grounds of Speke Hall, Liverpool ( Speke ) Airport, as the airport was originally known, started scheduled flights in 1930 with a service by Imperial Airways via Barton Aerodrome near Eccles, Manchester and Castle Bromwich Aerodrome Birmingham to Croydon Airport near London.

During World War II, the airport was taken over by the Royal Air Force and known as RAF Speke.

On 8 October 1940, Speke was witness to what is thought to be the fastest air to air combat " kill " in the Battle of Britain and possibly of all time.

To fulfill its role as the new short-and medium-haul British flag carrier, BEA was organised into two divisions based at Northolt and Liverpool Speke respectively, with the former responsible for all scheduled services to the Continent and the latter for all scheduled services within the British Isles.

A definitive series, with new designs, was issued in 1954 for Queen Elizabeth, and in 1958 a pair of commemoratives marked the 100th anniversary of the discovery of the Great Lakes of Africa by Burton and Speke.

* James Augustus Grant who discovered the source of the Nile together with Speke was born at Househill, attended Nairn Academy and died at Nairn in 1892.

Believing he had found the source of the Nile on seeing this " vast expanse of open water " for the first time, Speke named the lake after Queen Victoria.

Speke returned to England before Burton, on 8 May 1859, and made their trip famous in a speech to the Royal Geographical Society, in which he claimed to have discovered the source of the Nile.

Speke reached Lake Victoria on 28 July 1862 and then travelled on the west side around Lake Victoria without actually seeing much of it ; but on the north side of the lake, Speke found the Nile flowing out of it and discovered the Ripon Falls.

Lord North married Anne Speke ( before 1741-1797 ) on 20 May 1756.

After a period of inactivity, Woodvale reopened on 22 July 1946, when the Spitfire F14s of No. 611 ( West Lancashire ) Squadron, Royal Auxiliary Air Force, moved here from Liverpool Airport at Speke.

Plans for an extended range based on the TR7, including a fastback variant codenamed " Lynx ", were ended when the Speke factory closed.

Both Speke and Stanley ( based on his 1875 stay in Uganda ) wrote books that praised the Baganda for their organisational skills and willingness to modernise.

The RAF formed the Merchant Ship Fighter Unit ( MSFU ) on 5 May 1941 in RAF Speke by the River Mersey in Liverpool.

The family had, by this point, been living there for nearly 20 years and finally moved out to a new council estate in Speke on 2 January 1950.

Planning was granted in May 2012 for Speke Business Park on Goodlass Road.

It is located on the southern edge of the city, bordered by Woolton, Allerton, Speke and Halewood.

Hunt's Cross Village is located at the suburb's northern boundary with Woolton, on the ancient cross-roads of Speke Road, Hillfoot Avenue and Woodend Avenue.

This complex is located on the site of the former Triumph Speke car factory where the TR7 sports car was produced.

After five months of operations, No. 303 was rested on 13 July moving to Speke near Liverpool, in 9 Group, Fighter Command.

Speke Hall was featured in Series 13 of Most Haunted which was broadcast on Living TV on 13 October 2009.

* John Hanning Speke ( 1827 – 1864 ) ( discovered the source of the Nile )

John Hanning Speke located a source of the Nile at Lake Victoria.

On the Creamfields event, in 2002 at Speke Airfield DJs such as Oakenfold, Seb Fontaine, Paul van Dyk performed along Dave Clarke, Jon Carter, Richie Hawtin and Felix Da Housecat, the event also featured live appearances from Basement Jaxx, All Saints, Death In Vegas and Moloko.

* A debate at the Royal Geographical Society between Richard Francis Burton and John Hanning Speke fails to take place, owing to Speke's suicide ( or accidental shooting ).

The only all-new Triumph model initiated as Rover Triumph was the ' TR7, which had the misfortune to be in production successively at three factories that were closed: Speke, the strike-prone Leyland-era Standard-Triumph works in Liverpool, the original Standard works at Canley, Coventry and finally the Rover works in Solihull.

These were built at a shadow factory at Speke Airport near Liverpool.

In 1977, a number ( probably 62 ) of Triumph TR7s with the same Sprint engine were manufactured as pre-production cars at Speke, Liverpool.

Football Club: Speke South Liverpool, a local amateur football side, was originally founded at the Austin Rawlinson Sports Centre, Speke.

Hunt's Cross was the name given to the ancient cross-roads at Speke Road, Hillfoot Avenue and Woodend Avenue, which formed the southern boundary of Much Woolton.

In addition 400 staff based at Head Office, in Speke as well as staff from other sites would also be made redundant.

At Liverpool the road is known at first as Parliament Street, then Upper Parliament Street, Smithdown Road, Allerton Road, Menlove Avenue, Hillfoot Road, Hillfoot Avenue and Higher Road, before joining Speke Boulevard.

* Speke Hall information at the National Trust

It was initially produced at the Speke, Liverpool factory, moving to Canley, Coventry in 1978 and then finally to the Rover plant in Solihull in 1980.

A small number of pre-production cars were manufactured at Speke in 1977, at the same time as the pre-production TR7 V8 ( later designated TR8 ) and TR7 Sprint cars.