When was david livingstone born

Andrew C. Gerald H. All rights reserved. Livingstone, David. Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa. Livingston, David and Charles Livingstone. N arrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi and its Tributaries. Livingstone Museum. Edited by Timothy Holmes. Currey, African Journal, Edited with an introduction by I.

Family Letters, Edited with an Introduction by I. Berkeley: University of California Press, Annesley, George and Violet Gordon.

David Livingstone: Light-Bearer to Africa. The expedition did not fare well, with squabbling among the crew and the original boat having to be abandoned. Other bodies of water were discovered, though Livingstone's wife, Mary, would perish from fever upon returning to Africa in Livingstone returned to England again in , speaking out against slavery, and the following year, published Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries.

In this book, Livingstone also wrote about his use of quinine as a malarial remedy and theorized about the connection between malaria and mosquitoes. Livingstone undertook another expedition to Africa, landing at Zanzibar in early and going on to find more bodies of water, with the hope of locating the source of the Nile River.

He eventually ended up in the village of Nyangwe, where he witnessed a devastating massacre where Arabic slave traders killed hundreds of people.

With the explorer thought to be lost, a transatlantic venture was developed by the London Daily Telegraph and New York Herald , and journalist Henry Stanley was sent to Africa to find Livingstone.

Stanley located the physician in Ujiji in late , and upon seeing him, uttered the now-well-known words, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume? Livingstone chose to stay, and he and Stanley parted ways in His body was eventually transported to and buried at Westminster Abbey.

At 10 he began working in the local cotton mill, with school lessons in the evenings. In , he began studying medicine and theology in Glasgow and decided to become a missionary doctor. In , he was posted to the edge of the Kalahari Desert in southern Africa. In , he married Mary Moffat, daughter of a fellow missionary. Livingstone became convinced of his mission to reach new peoples in the interior of Africa and introduce them to Christianity, as well as freeing them from slavery. It was this which inspired his explorations.

In and , he travelled across the Kalahari, on the second trip sighting the upper Zambezi River. By April he was bleeding profusely and soon had to be carried in a litter. He died during the night of 30 April at the village of Chitambo , a Lala headman.

The heart and viscera were buried on the spot, but Susi decided to carry Livingstone's body, duly embalmed, to the coast, along with his effects. At Tabora, Susi's expedition met a search party led by V. Cameron ; against his advice, the team held firm to their remarkable purpose and reached Bagamoyo in February Kirk's deputy arranged for the body to be dispatched to England.

On 18 April Livingstone was buried in the nave of Westminster Abbey. Murchison —' the best friend I ever had ' Last Journals , 2. In death Livingstone became once more a national hero. Although Livingstone's Nile theory had already been disproved, he was acclaimed once again as a great abolitionist: his numerous reports on the slavers' advance across Africa from the east coast were seen to have led to the treaty against the trade enforced on the sultan of Zanzibar in Two Scottish missions—one named Livingstonia and the other Blantyre—went out to Lake Nyasa and the Shire highlands in —6.

Both were crucial factors in the British occupation of what became Nyasaland and then Malawi. Stanley himself completed Livingstone's geographical work by reaching the Lualaba and following the Congo to the sea.

Stanley had, of course, taken the lead in reviving Livingstone's celebrity and his book, How I Found Livingstone , presented the traveller as a genial saint. Horace Waller , who had been with the UMCA at Magomero , fastidiously edited Livingstone's Last Journals , a poignant testimony to soul-searching, suffering, forbearance, and tenacity. These books, and their derivatives, contributed to a Livingstone legend which had begun with Missionary Travels.

There was a peculiar romance about the lone missionary ever pressing into new country, concerned not to convert but to bear Christian witness by preaching the gospel, giving magic-lantern shows, and speaking against slavery. Livingstone became a symbol of what the British—and other Europeans—wished to believe about their motives as they took over tropical Africa in the late nineteenth century: in effect he redeemed the colonial project. In the Scottish national memorial to David Livingstone was opened at his birthplace, Blantyre, by the duchess of York ; by there had been 2 million visitors.

In Africa, he is still commemorated in the names of two towns: Blantyre, in Malawi, and Livingstone, in Zambia, beside the Victoria Falls. For half a century after his death Livingstone was the subject of hagiography rather than scholarship. More realistic assessments became possible with access to the papers of Kirk and other members of the Zambezi expedition. The chief work of reappraisal, however, was achieved in Isaac Schapera's magisterial editions of Livingstone's journals and letters up to During the later twentieth century a complex character came into focus: versatile in practical skills, intellectually curious, strikingly free from religious or racial prejudice, exerting unusual charm, and inspiring at least a few to great loyalty; yet deficient in political sense, tactless, touchy, rancorous, stingy with thanks or encouragement, devious, and callous when other people's interests seemed to conflict with his duty to God.

Livingstone's reputation for managing Africans, if not Europeans, rests on the expeditions of —6, which were organized chiefly by Africans, and on Waller's emollient edition of his last journals. None the less, his writings have acquired new value as a rich source for the history of Africans.

His pioneering cartography of eastern Angola and what became Botswana, Zambia, and Malawi was but one facet of his skill as an amateur field-scientist in an age of growing specialization. Secular knowledge and material mastery were integral to his missiology: the industrial revolution was part of a divine plan.

Livingstone both embodied and transcended the nineteenth-century tension between religion and science, and it was this which accounted for the scale and complexity of his career in Africa. Clendennen and I. View the article for this person in the Dictionary of National Biography archive edition. Printed from Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice.

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Livingstone, David — David Livingstone — by Thomas Annan , Scottish National Portrait Gallery. Early life, — In that tenement David Livingstone was born. The crossing of Africa, — Livingstone had other business in Cape Town. In Britain, — Within days of Livingstone's return to Britain in the RGS held a special meeting, on 15 December, to bestow on him its gold medal; on the next day the LMS held a reception for him, chaired by Lord Shaftesbury. To one listener he appeared: plainly and rather carelessly dressed, of middle height [he was 5 ft 8 in.

Seaver, David Livingstone , , —7. Simmons, Livingstone and Africa , , The Zambezi expedition, — For the government the aim of the expedition was to assess the prospects for British trade up the Zambezi. In Britain, — This time Livingstone's reception was subdued. Stewart had identified: the fallacy in Livingstone's method.

The last journey, — In Bombay , Livingstone recruited several sepoys, and twelve Africans from mission schools, including four whom he had brought across in Significance and reputation In death Livingstone became once more a national hero. Sources D. Livingstone, Missionary travels and researches in South Africa Livingstone and C. Livingstone, Narrative of an expedition to the Zambesi and its tributaries … — The last journals of David Livingstone, in central Africa, from to his death , ed.

Waller, 2 vols. David Livingstone : family letters, — , ed. Schapera, 2 vols. Livingstone's missionary correspondence, — , ed.

Schapera Livingstone's private journals, — , ed. Livingstone's African journal, — , ed. David Livingstone : South African papers, — , ed. The Zambesi journal and letters of John Kirk, —63 , ed. Foskett David Livingstone : letters and documents, — , ed. Holmes Archives BL , letters to his wife, daughters, and others, Add. MS NL Scot. RGS , corresp. SOAS , corresp. BL , letters to Edmund Gabriel, Add. Likenesses S. Bonomi, pencil drawing, , NPG.

Grimstone, chalk drawing, exh. RA , Scot. Mayall, photograph, , NPG. Phillips, oils, , priv. Pound, print, pubd after photograph by Mayall , NPG. Annan, photograph, , Scot. NPG [see illus. Hill, bronze statue, , Edinburgh; related plaster statuette, Scot. Havill, oils, —84 posthumous , NPG. Paton, statue, after A. King, cartes-de-visite, NPG. See also Livingstone, Charles — , missionary and traveller in Africa Stanley, Sir Henry Morton — , explorer and journalist.

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