Scot who helped open up Africa

BORN in Blantyre, Lanarkshire, in 1813, David Livingstone began work in a textile mill at the age of ten, educating himself with evening classes.

In 1840 he received his medical degree and was accepted by the London Missionary Society. He first went to Africa as a Christian missionary in 1841 when he was 27 years old.

During his travels he discovered or traced some of Africa’s major rivers and lakes. His meeting with the American journalist Henry Morton Stanley on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in 1871 led to the famous words “Dr Livingstone, I presume?”

Up until his death in 1873, Livingstone wrote extensively of his travels and discoveries, winning wide acclaim and helping influence western attitudes towards Africa and its inhabitants.