60 Fun Facts About David Livingstone

In which Scottish mill town was David Livingstone born in 1813?

He was born in a tenement for cotton-factory workers on the Clyde; the city of Blantyre in Malawi is named after it.

At what age did Livingstone start work in a cotton mill?

He and his brother John worked 14-hour days as piecers, tying broken threads on the spinning machines.

What was Livingstone's profession, alongside being a missionary?

He studied medicine at Anderson's University in Glasgow while still working at the mill outside term time.

Which organisation sent Livingstone out to Africa in 1840?

He had originally answered a call for medical missionaries to China, but the looming First Opium War changed the plan.

Livingstone first wanted to be a missionary in which country before Africa?

The London Missionary Society instead suggested the West Indies, and he replied that it was already well served by doctors.

Which veteran missionary inspired Livingstone with talk of 'the smoke of a thousand villages'?

Livingstone later married his daughter Mary.

What was the maiden name of Livingstone's wife Mary?

She came from a prominent missionary family and died of malaria on the Zambezi in 1862.

Which animal attacked Livingstone at Mabotsa in 1844, crushing his left arm?

His companion Mebalwe saved him by drawing the animal's attention; the badly-set bone later helped identify his body.

Livingstone is recorded as converting only one African to Christianity. Who was he?

He lapsed within months and kept his five wives and his rainmaking, but went on preaching Christianity himself.

Which desert did Livingstone cross in 1849 with William Cotton Oswell to reach Lake Ngami?

The Royal Geographical Society rewarded the journey with a chronometer watch.

In which port did Livingstone hand out tracts to drunken sailors on his 1840 voyage to Africa?

He was impressed by the cathedral and scenery but not by the British and American sailors; his fellow missionaries stayed aboard.

On his 1854 crossing to the Atlantic, Livingstone reached which Portuguese port?

He decided the route was too hard for traders and turned round to walk the whole way back and on to the Indian Ocean.

Which Kololo chief lent Livingstone the men who accompanied him to both coasts?

Twenty-seven warriors went west to Luanda; 114 went east down the Zambezi.

What is the local Lozi name for the falls Livingstone named after Queen Victoria?

It means 'the smoke that thunders'; he saw them in 1855 with a party of Kololo men.

Victoria Falls lies on the border between which two countries?

Both countries have national parks at the site, and the town on the Zimbabwean side is also called Victoria Falls.

How wide is Victoria Falls?

Combined with its 108-metre drop, that makes it the largest single sheet of falling water in the world.

Livingstone's 1856 arrival at which port completed the first European crossing of south-central Africa?

There he received a letter from the London Missionary Society coolly declining to fund plans 'connected only remotely with the spread of the Gospel'.

Livingstone's 1857 bestseller was titled Missionary Travels and Researches in which region?

John Murray published it, and it turned him into a celebrity in demand as a public speaker.

Which honour did the Royal Geographical Society give Livingstone in 1855?

His body later lay in state at the Society's Savile Row headquarters before his Westminster Abbey funeral.

What government post did Livingstone take up in 1857 after resigning as a missionary?

His roving commission covered 'the Eastern Coast of Africa and the independent districts in the interior'.

How much did the British government grant toward Livingstone's Zambezi expedition?

The rest was raised by public subscription; the Foreign Office then turned his planned solo trip into a six-officer expedition.

What was the name of the prefabricated iron steamer used on the Zambezi expedition?

It was named for the Tswana nickname of Livingstone's wife, mother of Robert, and had to be repeatedly hauled across shoals.

Which rapids on the Zambezi proved impassable and wrecked the expedition's plan of a river highway?

Livingstone had failed to explore them on his earlier journey down the river.

Which artist was dismissed from the Zambezi expedition after disagreements?

His paintings of Victoria Falls, made on a later trip, were among the first images Europeans saw of the falls.

Livingstone's Zambezi expedition were the first Europeans to reach which body of water?

Livingstone later had a steamer, Lady Nyasa, built specially to sail on it; today the lake is usually called Lake Malawi.

Which bishop led the Universities' Mission to Central Africa up the Shire River in 1861, dying within months?

The mission had been founded in 1860 at Livingstone's own request.

Of what did Mary Livingstone die in April 1862 on the Zambezi?

The expedition physician John Kirk soon wrote that Livingstone was 'out of his mind and a most unsafe leader'.

What geographical mystery obsessed Livingstone's final expedition?

He said solving it was valuable only as a means of 'opening my mouth with power' against the slave trade.

Livingstone thought the Lualaba River might be the upper Nile. Into which river does it actually flow?

He was wrong about the Nile, but he identified Lake Ngami, Lake Malawi and Lake Bangweulu for Western science.

At which Lualaba market town did Livingstone see Arab slavers massacre around 400 Africans in 1871?

The scene shattered him and his published account helped push Britain to close the Zanzibar slave market.

Which newspaper sent Henry Morton Stanley to find Livingstone?

Stanley, born John Rowlands in Wales, had earlier bribed a telegraph operator to file his Magdala report ahead of the army's.

In which settlement on Lake Tanganyika did Stanley find Livingstone in November 1871?

Livingstone had just staggered 240 miles back there from Nyangwe, violently ill for most of the way.

Why do historians doubt Stanley really said 'Dr Livingstone, I presume?'

Livingstone's own account of the meeting also does not mention the phrase.

How many of Livingstone's 44 letter dispatches from his last expedition reached Zanzibar?

He lost contact with the outside world for six years, and Comoros Islanders who deserted him falsely reported his death.

What was Stanley's birth name?

Born in Denbigh, Wales, he took the name of a New Orleans merchant who befriended him.

What did Stanley and Livingstone establish together about Lake Tanganyika?

Stanley's 1872 book was titled How I Found Livingstone.

Where did Livingstone die on 1 May 1873?

He was 60 and died of malaria and internal bleeding caused by dysentery.

What did Livingstone's attendants remove and bury under a tree at the place he died?

The tree was probably a mpundu; a piece of its wood was later exhibited in Bromley alongside slave chains he had brought home.

Which two African companions led the carrying of Livingstone's body to the coast?

They travelled to Britain in 1874 and helped Horace Waller edit The Last Journals.

Roughly how far did Livingstone's followers carry his body to reach the coast at Bagamoyo?

The journey took 63 days and 79 followers completed it.

Where is Livingstone buried?

His body first lay in repose at the Royal Geographical Society's headquarters at 1 Savile Row.

Which Scottish bank put Livingstone on its £10 notes from 1971 to 1998?

A later issue showed him against a map of the Zambezi expedition.

Which Malawian city is named after Livingstone's Scottish birthplace?

The country also has a town called Livingstonia, and Zambia a city called Livingstone.

In the 2002 BBC poll of the 100 Greatest Britons, where did Livingstone rank?

Unlike Cecil Rhodes, he remains a broadly admired figure in the countries he travelled through.

Which book, read in 1832, gave the young Livingstone his way of reconciling faith and science?

His father had feared science books were undermining Christianity and tried to restrict him to theology.

At which Glasgow institution did Livingstone begin studying medicine in 1836?

He was tutored in Latin for the entrance requirement by a local Catholic, Daniel Gallagher, later a priest.

Livingstone's son Robert died as a prisoner after fighting under an alias in which conflict?

As 'Rupert Vincent' of the 3rd New Hampshire Volunteers he was captured by the Confederates and died at Salisbury prison camp.

Livingstone's son William Oswell was nicknamed Zouga after what?

He later practised medicine in Trinidad; brother Thomas died of bilharzia in Egypt aged 27.

By Livingstone's estimate, what share of enslaved Africans survived to reach overseas masters?

His figures were later criticised as exaggerated, though his writings stirred public support for abolition.

What did Livingstone call 'the strangest disease' he saw among captured free men in Africa?

He noted the sufferers placed a hand correctly over the heart even though many locals thought the organ sat higher.

From 1867 Livingstone accepted help from Mohamad Bogharib and 'Mpamari', men who were what?

He depended on the very trade he wanted to end and was furious to find some replacement porters from Ujiji were slaves.

The mineral livingstonite, named for the explorer, was first described in 1874 from which country?

A cichlid, an eland subspecies and a fruit bat also carry his name.

Which actor played Livingstone in the 1939 film Stanley and Livingstone?

Later portrayals include Bernard Hill in Mountains of the Moon and Nigel Hawthorne in Forbidden Territory.

Petina Gappah's 2019 novel Out of Darkness, Shining Light fictionalises which journey?

His remains, papers and maps travelled roughly 1,500 miles so they could reach England.

Which Mount Rushmore sculptor designed the David Livingstone Centenary Medal?

Set up by the Hispanic Society of America and awarded by the American Geographical Society, it went to Theodore Roosevelt in 1917.

Where was the principal celebration of the 1913 centenary of Livingstone's birth held?

The Archbishop of Canterbury presided and a 300-voice choir sang the cantata 'Livingstone the pilgrim'.

What technique names the initiative that first put his 1871 Field Diary online in 2011?

Digital archives are now unified by Livingstone Online at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

The Rhodes-Livingstone Institute near Lusaka, active 1937-1964, pioneered research in which field?

Zambia's city of Livingstone also holds a museum and a 2005 statue of the explorer at Victoria Falls.

Which university, evolved from Anderson's University where Livingstone studied, has a Livingstone Tower?

The tower's foyer holds a statue of him, and the university also runs a David Livingstone Centre for Sustainability.

What relic of Livingstone was displayed at a 1932 Missionary Exhibition in Bromley?

It was lent by one of his daughters alongside slave chains and irons he had brought back to England.