The Times Great Scottish Lives: Obituaries of Scotland’s Finest

Sir David Livingstone

Missionary and explorer, whose search for the real source of the Nile led to his death – ‘fallen in the cause of civilisation and progress’

1 May 1873

The following telegram, dated Aden, the 27th inst., has been received at the Foreign Office from Her Majesty’s Acting Consul-General at Zanzibar:–

‘The report of Livingstone’s death is confirmed by letters received from Cameron, dated Unyanyembe, October 20. He died of dysentery after a fortnight’s illness, shortly after leaving Lake Bemba for eastward. He had attempted to cross the lake from the north, and failing in this had doubled back and rounded the lake, crossing the Chambize and the other rivers down from it; had then crossed the Luapuia, and died in Lobisa, after having crossed a marshy country with the water for three hours at a time above the waist; ten of his men had died, and the remainder, consisting of 79 men, were marching to Unyanyembe. They had disembowelled the body and had filled it with salt, and had put brandy into the mouth to preserve it. His servant Chumas went on ahead to procure provisions, as the party was destitute, and gave intelligence to Cameron, who expected the body in a few days. Cameron and his party had suffered greatly from fever and ophthalmia, but hoped to push on to Ujiji. Livingstone’s body may be expected at Zanzibar in February. Please telegraph orders as to disposal. No leaden shells procurable here.’

A plain Scottish missionary, and the son of poor parents, David Livingstone yet came of gentle extraction. Considering that his father and himself were strong Protestants, it is singular that his grandfather fell at Culloden fighting in the Cause of the Stuarts, and that the family were Roman Catholics down to about a century ago. More recently the Livingstones were settled in the little island of Ulva, on the coast of Argyleshire not far from the celebrated island of Iona.

Dr. Livingstone’s father, Neill Livingstone, kept a small tea dealer’s shop in the neighbourhood of Hamilton, in Lanarkshire, and was a ‘deacon’ in an independent chapel in Hamilton. The family motto was ‘Be honest.’ His son was born at East Kilbride, in Lanarkshire, in or about the year 1816. His early youth was spent in employment as a ‘hand’ in the cotton-mills in the neighbourhood of Glasgow; during the winter he pursued his religious studies with a view to following the profession of a missionary in foreign parts.

While working at the Blantyre mills, young Livingstone was able to attend an evening school, where he imbibed an early taste for classical literature. His religious feelings, however, warmed towards a missionary life; he felt an intense longing to become ‘a pioneer of Christianity in China,’ and hoped that by so doing he might ‘lead to the material benefit of some portions of that immense empire.’

We next find him, at the age of 19, attending the medical and Greek classes in Glasgow in the winter, and the divinity lectures of Dr. Wardlaw in the summer. His reading while at work in the factory was carried on by ‘placing his book on the spinning-jenny,’ so that he could ‘catch sentence after sentence while he went on with his labour.’ In 1838 he resolved to offer his services to the London Missionary Society as a candidate for the ministry in foreign parts. The opium war, which then was raging, combined with other circumstances to divert his thoughts from China to Africa. Having been ordained to the pastoral office, he left these shores in 1840 for Southern Africa, and after a voyage of nearly three months reached Cape-Town. His first destination was Port Natal, where he became personally acquainted with his fellow countryman, the still surviving Rev. Robert Moffat, whose daughter subsequently became his wife and the faithful and zealous sharer of his toils and travels, and accompanied him in his arduous journey to Lake Ngami.

It was not until 1849 that he made his first essay as an explorer, strictly so called, as distinct from a missionary; in that year he made his first journey in search of Lake Ngami. In 1852 he commenced, in company with his wife, the ‘great journey,’ as he calls it, to Lake Ngami, dedicating his account of it to Sir Roderick Murchison, as ‘a token of gratitude for the kind interest he has always taken in the author’s pursuits and welfare.’ The outline of this ‘great journey’ is so familiar to all readers of modern books of travel and enterprise that we need not repeat it here. It is enough to say that in the ten years previous to 1855 Livingstone led several independent expeditions, into the interior of Southern Africa, during which he made himself acquainted with the languages, habits, and religious notions of several savage tribes that were previously unknown to Englishmen, and twice crossed the entire African continent, a little south of the tropic of Capricorn, from the shores of the Indian Ocean to those of the Atlantic.

In 1855 the Victoria gold medal of the Geographical Society was awarded to Livingstone in recognition of his services to science. In the whole of these African explorations it was calculated at the time that Livingstone must have passed over no less than 11,000 miles of land, for the most part untrodden and untraversed by any European, and up to that time believed to be inaccessible.

Back in England, he was hailed as ‘the pioneer of sound knowledge, [whose] scientific precision … left his mark upon so many important stations in regions hitherto blank upon our maps.’

Early in the spring of 1858 Livingstone returned to Africa for the purpose of prosecuting further researches and pushing forward the advantages which his former enterprise had to some extent secured. Before setting out he was publicly entertained at a banquet at the London Tavern, and honoured by the Queen with a private audience, at which Her Majesty expressed, on behalf of herself and the Prince Consort, her deep interest in Dr. Livingstone’s new expedition.

Within a very few months from the time of leaving England, Dr. Livingstone and his expedition reached that part of the eastern coast of Africa at which the Zambesi falls into the ocean; her two small steamers were placed at their disposal, and they resolved to ascend the river and thence make their way into the interior. In these journeys Livingstone and his companions discovered the lakes Nyassa and Shirwa, two of the minor inland meres of Africa, and explored the regions to the west and north-west of Lake Nyassa for a distance of 300 miles – districts hitherto unknown to Europeans, and which lead to the head waters of the north-eastern branch of the Zambesi and of several of that river’s tributaries.

It is no slight thing to be able to boast, as Dr. Livingstone could boast, that by means of the Zambesi a pathway has been opened towards Central Highlands, where Europeans, with their accustomed energy and enterprise, may easily form a healthy and permanent settlement. This leads us to the third and last great journey of Dr. Livingstone, the one from which such great results have been expected, and in which he has twice or thrice previous to the last sad news been reported to have lost his life. Leaving England at the close of 1865, or early in the following year, he was despatched once more to Central Africa, under the auspices of the Geographical Society, in order to prosecute still further researches which would throw a light on that mystery of more than 2,000 years’ standing – the real sources of the Nile. Of his explorations since that date the public were for several years in possession of only scanty and fragmentary details, for it must be remembered that Dr. Livingstone was accredited in this last expedition as Her Britannic Majesty’s Consul to the various native chiefs of the unknown interior. One result was that his home despatches have been of necessity addressed, not to the Geographical Society, but to the Foreign Office. It was known, however, that he spent many months in the central district between 10 deg. and 15 deg. south of the Equator, and Dr. Beke – no mean authority upon such a subject – considers that he has solved the mystery of the true source of the Nile among the high tablelands and vast forests which lie around the lake with which his name will for ever be associated.

We are bound to record the fact that Dr. Livingstone claims to have found that ‘the chief sources of the Nile arise between 11 deg. and 12 deg. of south latitude, or nearly in the position assigned to them by Ptolemy.’ This may or may not be the case; for time alone will show us whether this mystery has been actually solved. During the last year or two our news of Dr. Livingstone has been but scanty, though from time to time communications – some alarming and others, again, reassuring – have reached us from himself or from other African Consuls, officially through the Foreign Office and privately through Sir Roderick Murchison. An account of his death at the hands of a band of Matites was discounted by Sir Roderick, who, with a keen insight which almost amounted to intuition, refused to believe the evidence on which the tale was based and gradually the world came round and followed suit.

In July, 1869, Dr. Livingstone resolved to strike westwards from his headquarters at Ujiji, on the Tanganyika Lake, in order to trace out a series of lakes which lay in that direction, and which, he hoped, would turn out eventually to be the sources of the Nile. If that, however, should prove not to be the case, it would be something, he felt, to ascertain for certain that they were the head waters of the Congo; and, in the latter case, he would probably have followed the course of the Congo, and have turned up, sooner or later, on the Western Coast of Africa. But this idea he appears to have abandoned. At all events, in the winter of 1870–71, he was found by Mr. Stanley, once more in the neighbourhood of his old haunts, still bent on the discovery of certain ‘fountains on the hills,’ which he trusted to be able to prove to be the veritable springs of the Nile.

During the last two years or so, if we except the sudden light thrown upon his career by the episode of Mr. Stanley’s successful search after him, we have been kept rather in the dark as to the actual movements of Dr. Livingstone. Mr. Stanley’s narrative of his discovery of the Doctor in the neighbourhood of Ujiji is in the hands of every well-informed Englishman, and his journey in company with him round the northern shores of Lake Tanganyika was recorded in the address delivered by Sir Henry Rawlinson, the President of the Geographical Society, last summer, who ended by predicting that ‘he will continue his journey along the Congo, and emerge from the interior on the Western Coast.’

We fear that these forecastings have been falsified by the event, and that we must now add the name of David Livingstone to the roll of those who have fallen in the cause of civilisation and progress. After his death on 1 May 1873 from dysentery in what is now Zambia, his body, accompanied as far as Zanzibar by his two most faithful servants, was brought back to Britain for burial in Westminster Abbey. His posthumous reputation was fostered by Henry Morton Stanley.

It is impossible not to mourn the loss of a missionary so liberal in his views, so large-hearted, so enlightened. By his labours it has come to pass that throughout the protected tribes of Southern Africa Queen Victoria is generally acknowledged as ‘the Queen of the people who love the black man.’ Livingstone had his faults and his failings; but the self-will and obstinacy he possibly at times displayed were very near akin to the qualities which secured his triumphant success, and much allowance must be made for a man for whom his early education had done so little, and who was forced, by circumstances around him, to act with a decision which must have sometimes offended his fellow-workers. Above all, his success depended, from first to last, in an eminent degree upon the great power which he possessed of entering into the feelings, wishes, and desires of the African tribes and engaging their hearty sympathy.

Thomas Carlyle

‘A great man of letters, quite as heroic as any of those whom he depicted’

7 February 1881

Thomas Carlyle died at half-past 8 on Saturday morning at his house in Cheyne-row, Chelsea. He had been for some years in feeble health, and more than once his recovery seemed doubtful. Of late even his friends saw little of him, and growing weakness and pain had compelled him to give up his old habit of taking long walks every day. The announcement of his death opens a chasm between the present and the past of our literature, a whole world of associations disappears. A great man of letters, quite as heroic as any of those whom he depicted, has passed away amid universal regret.

About eight months before Robert Burns died, and within but a few miles of Dumfries, the scene of his death, was born the most penetrating and sympathetic interpreter of his genius. Carlyle’s birth-place was Ecclefechan, an insignificant Dumfriesshire village, in the parish of Hoddam, known by name, at least, to readers of Burns, and memorable for an alehouse which was loved only too well by the poet. There Carlyle was born on the 4th of December, 1795. He was the eldest son of a family of eight children; his brothers were all men of character and ability; one of them, Dr. John Carlyle, was destined to make a name in literature as the translator of Dante. Mr. Carlyle’s father, James Carlyle, was the son of Thomas Carlyle, tenant of Brown-Knowes, a small farm in Annandale, and of Margaret Aitken. At the time of his eldest son’s birth James Carlyle was a stone mason, and resided in Ecclefechan; but he became afterwards tenant of Scotsberg, a farm of two or three hundred acres, which is now occupied by Mr. Carlyle’s youngest and only surviving brother. Of James Carlyle, his son once said, ‘I never heard tell of any clever man that came of entirely stupid people,’ and his own lineage might well have suggested this saying. Carlyle never spoke of his father and mother except with veneration and affection. All extant testimony goes to show that Mr. Carlyle’s father and mother were of the finest type of Scotch country folk – simple, upright, and with family traditions of honest worth.

Carlyle learnt to read and write in the parish school of Hoddam, where he remained until his ninth year. The parish minister, his father’s friend, taught him the elements of Latin. From the parish school he passed to the Burgh School of Annan, six miles distant, where he saw Edward Irving, ‘his first friend,’ as he once called him, who was some years his senior. Carlyle was barely 14 when he entered the University of Edinburgh. It was then in its glory. Some of its professors possessed a European reputation. The eloquent and acute Dr. Thomas Brown lectured on moral philosophy; Playfair held the chair of natural philosophy; the ingenious and quarrelsome Sir John Leslie taught mathematics; and Dunbar was professor of Greek. However, the only professor for whom Carlyle seems to have had much regard was Sir John Leslie, who had some points of affinity to his pupil; and the feeling was returned. Carlyle made few friends at the University. He was lonely and contemplative in his habits. He took no part in the proceedings, and his name is not to be found on the list of members of the Speculative Society, which every clever student was then expected to join. In after years he laid it down that ‘the true University of these days is a collection of books,’ and on this principle he acted. Not content with ransacking the College Library, he read all that was readable in various circulating libraries – among others, one founded by Allan Ramsay – and acquired knowledge which extended far beyond the bounds of the University course. He left the University with no regret.

Carlyle had been intended for the church, but could not bring himself to embrace the doctrines of his father’s kirk, and turned his hand instead to work by which he could earn his bread. For a year or two he taught mathematics in the burgh school of Annan, and remained there only two years; at their close he was appointed teacher of mathematics and classics in the burgh school of Kirkcaldy. Teaching Fifeshire boys however was not Carlyle’s vocation. After staying about two years in Kirkcaldy he quitted it, leaving behind him the reputation of a too stern disciplinarian to begin in Edinburgh the task his life as a writer of books.

Carlyle tried his ’prentice hand in Brewster’s Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, to which he contributed many articles on geographical and biographical subjects; among others, articles on Sir John Moore, Dr. Moore, Nelson, the elder and younger Pitt, Montaigne, and Montesquieu. They give but faint, uncertain promise of the author’s genius and of those gifts which made his later works as individual as a picture by Albert Dürer or Rembrandt. But they indicate patient industry and research and minute attention to details. At the instance of Sir David Brewster he translated Legendre’s Geometry and Trigonometry, prefixing to the treatise a short and modest introduction on Proportion. Carlyle about this time mastered German; his brother was studying in Germany, and the letters from Dr. Carlyle heightened his interest in its language and its literature, which was then in full blossom. The first fruits of this knowledge was an article contributed to the New Edinburgh on Faust, a subject to which he was so often to return.

About this period of Carlyle’s life the once famous John Scott was editing The London Magazine and had gathered round him a group of clever writers; Hazlitt, Lamb, Croly, Cary, and Allan Cunningham amongst them. Carlyle joined them. Here appeared, in 1823, the first part of the Life of Schiller. No name was attached to it. Those who knew that it was Carlyle’s work predicted great things from a writer who, in youth, exhibited noble simplicity and maturity of style, and who had conceptions of criticism very rare in those times. In the following year he published, again anonymously, a translation of Wilhelm Meister’s Lehrjahre. Goethe was then no prophet out of his own country. He was known to no Englishman but De Quincey, Coleridge and a few students of German literature. The novel was sneered at, and the savage, elaborate invectives which De Quincey hurled at Goethe did not spare the translator. Undeterred by sneers and remonstrances, Carlyle published in 1827 several volumes entitled German Romance, containing translations from the chief writers of the romantic school.

In 1827 he married Miss Jane Welsh, the only daughter of Dr. Welsh, of Haddington, a descendant of John Knox. She had inherited a farm lying remote and high up among the hills of Dumfriesshire; and there Carlyle found the Patmos which his perturbed spirit needed. To the farmhouse of Craigenputtock – a plain, gaunt two-story dwelling, with its face blankly looking towards the hill, some 15 miles from town or market – came Carlyle and his bride in 1828. Here for six years he lived with this one friend and companion – a companion worthy of him, a talker scarcely inferior to himself, a woman, as he himself termed her, of ‘bright invincibility of spirit.’

Carlyle toiled hard in this temple of industrious peace. In these obscure youthful years, he wrote, read, and planned much, and made incursions into many domains of knowledge. In a bare, scantily furnished room of the farmhouse, now shown with pride to visitors, he pursued this plan and wrote essay after essay and did much of his best work. Here were composed his essays on Burns, Goethe and Johnson, Richter, Heyne, Novalis, Voltaire and Diderot. Sartor Resartus was composed here; the manuscript to be laid aside until some other time. Carlyle contributed to the Edinburgh Review, which was still under the management of Jeffrey. The relationship was not perfectly smooth or entirely satisfactory to either editor or writer. It was difficult to adjust the boundaries of the respective provinces, Carlyle being apt to take offence at the ruthless hacking and hewing of his work in which Jeffrey indulged, and the latter being cut to the quick by the eccentricities of style displayed by his contributor, and surprised that Carlyle was not grateful for efforts to impart trim grace and polish to his articles. With Professor Napier, on the other hand, Carlyle’s dealings were much to his satisfaction. Sartor Resartus, that unique collection of meditations and confessions, passionate invective, solemn reflection, and romantic episodes from his own life, was composed at Craigenputtock in 1831. It is not a little astonishing that this book, every page of which is stamped with genius of the highest order, failed at first to find admirers or appreciators. Even John Stuart Mill who afterwards delighted in the book, admitted that when he saw it in manuscript he thought little of it. Not for seven years after its composition did Sartor appear as a volume. It ‘had at last,’ says its author, ‘to clip itself in pieces, and be content to struggle out, bit by bit, in some courageous magazine that offered.’

Strengthening and helpful and rich in fruit were these years in his Nithsdale hermitage. But the time came for him to leave Craigenputtock. A historian, a critic, a biographer must needs have libraries within his reach. Some ties which bound Carlyle to Dumfriesshire had been severed. His father had passed away full of years, and it became fit, and even necessary, that Carlyle should leave his mountain seclusion and betake himself to London. He settled in Cheyne-row, in a small three-storied house, which he never afterwards quitted.

Carlyle was a man of mature years when he removed to London. The first years after his coming to the city were the most fruitful of his literary life. Essays, histories, lectures, biographies poured from his brain with surprising rapidity. No book-hack could have surpassed the regularity and industry with which he worked, late and early, in his small attic. A walk before breakfast was part of the day’s duties. At 10 o’clock in the morning, whether the spirit moved him or not, he took up his pen and laboured hard until 3 o’clock; nothing, not even the opening of the morning letters, was allowed to distract him. Then came walking, answering letters, and seeing friends. One of his favourite relaxations was riding, in an omnibus. In the evening he read and prepared for the work of the morrow.

His best books were by no means instantaneously successful. Even The French Revolution, with all its brilliancy and captivating élan, had to wait for a publisher. He found his first warmest admirers on the other side of the Atlantic. Before fame in its common form had come to him, men whose private opinions were to be future public opinion had conceived the highest notion of his powers and the future before him; and the little parlour in Cheyne-row had become the gathering place, the favourite haunt of many literary men. At different times between 1837 and 1840, Mr. Carlyle delivered at Willis’s Rooms and Portmansquare courses of lectures on some of his favourite subjects – German Literature, The History of Literature, The Revolutions of Modern Europe, and Heroes and Hero-Worship. Each of these lectures was a considerable event in literature. People of all shades and schools were amazed. Crabbe Robinson, who attended the whole of one course, says of a certain lecture, ‘It gave great satisfaction, for it had uncommon thoughts, and was delivered with unusual animation.’ ‘As for Carlyle’s Lectures,’ writes Bunsen, ‘they are very striking, rugged thoughts, not ready made up for any political or religious system; thrown at people’s heads, by which most of his audience are sadly startled.’