Dr. David Livingstone

David Livingstone was born on the 19 March 1813, 8 miles south of Glasgow, one of seven children. As a young child he worked tirelessly on the cotton mills from 6am to 8pm and then studied hard at the night school he attended as did many children of that time.

During the following years David Livingstone met and married Mary Moffat in 1845 and they had six children. Sadly, Mary died in 1862 but David continued his missionary work for another 11 years and died in May 1873 in Africa at Chipundu, near Chief Chitambo's village (12°17'57.8"S 30°17'33.2"E). His heart was buried beneath a pundu tree nearby and his body is buried in Westminster Abbey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Livingstone

David Livingstone (19 March 1813 – 1 May 1873) was a Scottish Congregationalist pioneer medical missionary with the London Missionary Society and explorer in Africa. His meeting with H. M. Stanley gave rise to the popular quotation, "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?".

Perhaps one of the most popular national heroes of the late 19th century in Victorian Britain, Livingstone had a mythic status, which operated on a number of interconnected levels: that of Protestant missionary martyr, that of working-class "rags to riches" inspirational story, that of scientific investigator and explorer, that of imperial reformer, anti-slavery crusader, and advocate of commercial empire.

His fame as an explorer helped drive forward the obsession with discovering the sources of the River Nile that formed the culmination of the classic period of European geographical discovery and colonial penetration of the African continent. At the same time his missionary travels, "disappearance" and death in Africa, and subsequent glorification as posthumous national hero in 1874 led to the founding of several major central African Christian missionary initiatives carried forward in the era of the European "Scramble for Africa".[1]

Other References

• "David Livingstone", Westminster Abbey