David Livingstone

93

David Livingstone : biography

19 March 1813 – 1 May 1873

In New Zealand

  • Livingstone Street in Westmere, Auckland
  • Livingstone Road in Flaxmere, Hastings

In Scotland

  • A statue stands near the base of the Scott Monument in the Princes Street Gardens, Edinburgh, Scotland.
  • The David Livingstone Centre in Blantyre, Scotland, is a museum in his honour.
  • David Livingstone Memorial Primary School in his birthplace, Blantyre, Lanarkshire, Scotland.
  • David Livingstone Memorial Church of the Church of Scotland, in Blantyre, Lanarkshire, Scotland.
  • A statue of Livingstone is sited in Cathedral Square, Glasgow.
  • A bust of David Livingstone is among those of famous Scotsmen in the William Wallace Memorial near Stirling, Scotland.
  • Strathclyde University, Glasgow (successor to Anderson’s University), commemorates him in the David Livingstone Centre for Sustainabilityhttp://www.strath.ac.uk/dlcs/ and the Livingstone Tower where there is a statue of him.
  • The David Livingstone (Anderson College) Memorial Prize in Physiology commemorates him at the University of Glasgow.
  • Livingstone Place, a street in the Marchmont neighborhood of Edinburgh.
  • Livingstone Street in Addiewell.
  • A memorial plaque commemorating the centenary of Livingstone’s birth was dedicated in St. James’s Congregational Church, the church he attended as a boy.

In Canada

  • The Livingstone Range of mountains in southern Alberta.
  • David Livingstone Elementary School, Vancouver
  • David Livingstone Community School, Winnipeg
  • Bronze bust in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
  • Gold bust in the city of Borden

Livingstone Avenue in Barrie, Ontario.

In the USA

  • Livingstone College, Salisbury, North Carolina.
  • Livingstone Adventist Academy, Salem, Oregon.

In South America

  • The Livingstone Healthservice in Jardìn Amèrica, Misiones, Argentina is named in his honour.

Banknotes

From 1971–1998 Livingstone’s image was portrayed on £10 notes issued by the Clydesdale Bank. He was originally shown surrounded by palm tree leaves with an illustration of African tribesmen on the back. A later issue showed Livingstone against a background graphic of a map of Livingstone’s Zambezi expedition, showing the River Zambezi, Victoria Falls, Lake Nyasa and Blantyre, Malawi; on the reverse, the African figures were replaced with an image of Livingstone’s birthplace in Blantyre, Scotland.

Biology

  • The Lake Malawi Cichlid Nimbochromis livingstonii is named in honour of David Livingstone.

Family life

While Livingstone had a great impact on British Imperialism, he did so at a tremendous cost to his family. In his absences, his children grew up missing their father, and his wife Mary (daughter of Mary and Robert Moffat) endured very poor health, and died of malaria on 27 April 1862 trying to follow him in Africa. He had six children: Robert reportedly died in the American Civil War; Agnes (b. 1847), Thomas, Elizabeth (who died two months after her birth), William Oswell (nicknamed Zouga because of the river along which he was born, in 1851) and Anna Mary (b. 1858). Only Agnes, William Oswell and Anna Mary married and had children.

His one regret in later life was that he did not spend enough time with his children, whom he loved immensely.Niall Ferguson: "Empire: The rise and demise of the British world order and the lessons for global power". Basic Books, 2003.

Livingstone and slavery

Livingstone’s letters, books, and journalsDavid Livingstone & Horace Waller (Ed): The Last Journals of David Livingstone in Central Africa from 1865 to his Death. Two Volumes. John Murray, London, 1874. did stir up public support for the abolition of slavery; accessed on 1 February 2007 however, he became humiliatingly dependent for assistance on the very slave-traders whom he wanted to put out of business. Because he was a poor leader of his peers, he ended up on his last expedition as an individualist explorer with servants and porters but no expert support around him. At the same time he did not use the brutal methods of maverick explorers such as Stanley to keep his retinue of porters in line and his supplies secure. For these reasons from 1867 onwards he accepted help and hospitality from Mohamad Bogharib and Mohamad bin Saleh (also known as Mpamari), traders who kept and traded in slaves, as he recounts in his journals. They in turn benefited from Livingstone’s influence with local people, which facilitated Mpamari’s release from bondage to Mwata Kazembe. Livingstone was also furious to discover some of the replacement porters sent at his request from Ujiji were slaves.