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The greatest African explorer David Livingstone was born in Low Blantyre on the banks of the River Clyde in Lanarkshire. Having
decided to become a missionary in China he went in 1834 to Glasgow, where he spent two years studying Greek, theology and medicine. But the China project fell through and in 1841 he went instead as a missionary to South
Africa. His missionary zeal and thirst for knowledge led him to penetrate father into "the dark continent" than any white man had done before. His first venture taking him as far as Lake Ngami in what is now Botswana,
and his second expedition in 1854 was to Zambezi and from there north westward as far as Lunda. In the next two years he became the first European to cross Africa from the Atlantic in the west to the Indian Ocean in the
east. November 1855 he discovered the mighty falls on the Zambezi which, in honour of Queen Victoria he named the Victoria Falls. Returning home he gave lectures about his journeys which proved immensely popular.On
his next expedition up the Zambezi between 1858 and 1864 he discovered Lake Nyasa (now Lake Malawi). Two years later he set out again determined this time to find the source of the Nile. In 1869 his party reached Lake
Tanganyika, here Livingstone was taken ill, his companions quarreled, and the expedition's supplies ran out, In Britain it was feared he was dead. It was at this point that Henry Morton Stanley, a correspondent on the
New York Herald, was dispatched by his editor to search for Livingstone, whom he finally tracked down the shores of Lake Tanganyika on October 28th 1871. He is reputed to have greeted the explorer with now immortal
words "Dr Livingston, I Presume?". The two of them then set about exploring Lake Tanganyika. Having decided against returning to Britain, Livingstone died in Chatambo (Zambia) in 1873, his body being taken back to
London for burial in Westminster Abbey. His life and work as a missionary is today documented in the David Livingstone Centre in Low Blantyre. David Livingstone 1813 - 1873 |
