Livingstone, David
1813-1873
Of the Church of Scotland's missionaries of the 19th century David Livingstone is probably the most famous, and his name is perpetuated on the continent of Africa in the city of Livingstonia, Malawi and the strong links between the Presbyterian churches of Malawi and Scotland. In popular memory, he is immortalised in the words of the greeting by the American journalist, H.M.Stanley, sent by the New York Times to Africa to find him, "Dr Livingstone, I presume?"
Livingstone was born on 19th March 1813 in Blantyre, Lanarkshire, into a poor family and left school early to work in a local mill. However, he kept up his education at night school and in response to a meeting about the China Missions resolved to become a medical missionary in China. To this end he started a medical degree at Anderson College, Glasgow in 1836, but the outbreak of the so-called Opium Wars prevented him fulfilling his call to serve in China.
Eventually, he was able to go to Africa as a missionary and set sail in 1840 under the auspices of the London Missionary Society. His station was Kuruman, in the Kalahari Region, where Robert Moffat, a fellow Scot, ministered for 50 years. Livingstone married Robert's daughter, Mary, in 1845.
Livingstone's desire to take the Gospel to the heart of Africa led to the first of his many journeys, during which he was the first European to discover the Zambesi River and the Victoria Falls. His other great ambition was to destroy the slave trade and in his journeys he was sometimes able to free groups of slaves, but it was the power of his published writings which opened the eyes of many in Europe and the United States of America to the evils of this trafficking in men, women and children.
His final journey, commissioned by the Royal Geographical Society to find the sources of the river Nile, began in 1865. For years there was no contact with him, and many assumed that he was dead. It was the desire to find him which led to Stanley's expedition and its eventual success, when the two men met on 10 November 1871. Stanley spent four months with Livingstone, who was greatly encouraged by his companionship, but he failed to persuade him to return home. Livingstone carried on with his exploration, though greatly weakened by hunger and disease, and was eventually discovered one morning, 4th May 1873, by his faithful African companions kneeling dead by his bed. His heart was buried where he died, at Ulala, and his body and his papers were carried on an epic journey to the coast and from there sent back to England, where he was interred in Westminster Abbey.
Livingstone left no will, and his testament consists of an inventory of the money in his British bank accounts. His chief executor, his eldest son Thomas Steele Livingstone, living in Hamilton, attests that he has no knowledge of the extent of his father's estate, if any, abroad. Mary Livingstone had died in 1862 in Africa, so the estate was divided equally among their children.
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